In the 2013 national parliamentary election Leikert stood successfully for election to the Bundestag, representing the . 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 , 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 , and of the .