Early beginnings Leikert joined the centre right
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in 2012. a co-opted member of the regional
party executive, a co-opted member of the party executive for the municipality of
Bruchköbel and a member of the Bruchköbel Commission for Families, Children, Young people and Old people.
Member of the German Parliament, 2013–present In the
2013 national parliamentary election Leikert stood successfully for election to the
Bundestag, representing the
Hanau electoral district (Wahlkreis 180). She won 44.3% of the first preference votes. It was, as she herself commented to reporters, an unbelievably rapid progression for someone who had only been a party member for slightly more than eighteen months. "I was certainly helped by the [national] political climate" (
"Mir hat eindeutig das politische Klima geholfen"). She became a member of the
Bundestag Health Committee, where she served as her parliamentary group's
rapporteur on
organ donation and
eHealth. She also became meetings secretary (
Schriftführerin) and a deputising member of the
Committee for Families, Women and Young people, and of the
Committee on Foreign Affairs. In the
2017 national parliamentary election Leikert successfully defended her parliamentary seat, albeit with a reduced majority. She won only 35.3% of the first preference votes, but this was still comfortably more than the second placed candidate,
Sascha Raabe of the
SPD. Both candidates saw reductions in their share of the vote, and populist or fringe parties gained vote share, reflecting wider national and international trends. Parliamentary colleagues elected her one of the CDU/CSU alliance's eleven Bundestag deputy chairpersons in January 2018, first under the leadership of
Volker Kauder and later
Ralph Brinkhaus. Her areas of responsibility within the parliamentary group include policy on Europe, political co-ordination and co-operation with like-minded political parties in other parts of Europe, the
European People's Party, the CDU's office in Brussels and
human rights. Since the
2021 elections, Leikert has been a member of the Committee for Families, Women and Youth and of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. In addition to her committee assignments, Leikert has been an alternate member of the German delegation to the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) since 2022. In the Assembly, she serves on the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons and the Sub-Committee on Refugee and Migrant Children and Young People. In June 2024, Leikert announced that she would not stand in the
2025 federal elections but instead pause her career in active politics. ==Other activities==