This paperstudies the total electoral effects of refugee migration in Germany. It useshigh-frequency data on voting intentions from regular polls in a syntheticcontrol approach. This approach allows identifying the effects ofrefugee migration that do not depend on geographic proximity between refugeesand natives and thus cannot be identified using regional variation in refugeepresence. Our findings showthat the 2015 refugee inflow, on average, did not cause a shift towards moreanti-immigration voting. However, this masks a strong effect on politicalpolarization. Both, parties with strong pro- and anti-immigration platforms,gained as a consequence of the inflow but the effect is more pronounced foranti-immigration parties. Studies using regional variation in refugee presencedo not capture these effects.

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