Merz’s conservatives on course to win key state vote despite far-right surge

BERLIN — Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative party is on course to narrowly win an election in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, according to preliminary results, giving the German leader a much-needed victory.

While the victory is welcome for Merz’s party, there will be plenty of concern at the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party more than doubling its vote share to 19.7 percent, according to preliminary results as of 8.30 p.m.

The conservative victory comes at the expense of Merz’s federal coalition partners, the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which came in second in the small state of around 4 million inhabitants which borders France, Luxembourg and Belgium. The SPD’s defeat at the hands of its coalition partner could plunge the party deeper into crisis nationally and make the government in Berlin far more fractious as the left-wing party seeks to retrench and appeal to what’s left of its socialist base.

Preliminary results indicate that Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is set to come in first with 30.9 percent of the vote, taking control of the state premiership from the SPD after 35 years in opposition. Results as of 8.30 p.m. suggest the SPD’s vote share collapsed by around 10 percentage points, to 25.8 percent.

“This is historic for us,” Jens Spahn, the CDU’s parliamentary group leader in Berlin, told public broadcaster ARD on Sunday. “It gives us in the CDU a boost at the federal level. But of course, the credit goes above all to our colleagues on the ground,” he added.

The CDU’s lead candidate in Rhineland-Palatinate, Gordon Schnieder, pointed to a combative campaign. “We had that will to win; I’ve felt it over the past few months,” Gordon Schnieder said on ARD television.

But the biggest winner in terms of vote-share gained is the far-right AfD, which more than doubled its support to 19.8 percent compared with the last state election five years ago when it got 8.3 percent of the vote. The strong showing comes after the AfD’s third-place performance in a state election in Baden-Württemberg earlier this month, illustrating how the party has been able to gain ground outside its eastern strongholds. The outcome in Rhineland-Palatinate is the AfD’s best-ever result in a western German state.

The election in Rhineland-Palatinate was the second of five state races to be held this year in what Germans are calling a Superwahljahr — or “super election year” — that is seen as a key test of the national mood as the AfD seeks to overtake Merz’s conservatives in national polls. The AfD is on track to secure big victories in two eastern states in votes set for September, according to polls.

“We have achieved record results,” Alice Weidel, one of the AfD’s national leaders, said on Sunday. “Voters appreciate the work we’ve done as opposition party, and we will continue on this path so that we can join the government in the next election,” she added.

To do so, the party would need to tear down Germany’s so-called firewall, which has been in place since the end of World War II and has prevented the far right from governing in a coalition with mainstream parties at state and national level.

For the struggling SPD, the result was another big setback. The party had the worst performance in a state state election since the end of World War II earlier this month in Baden-Württemberg, coming in at just 5.5 percent. In Rhineland-Palatinate, the party lost almost 10 percentage points compared with its previous result.

These poor results are expected to put increasing pressure on the SPD’s national leadership.

“I know this result will spark personnel debates,” said Lars Klingbeil, one of the SPD’s national leaders and the country’s finance minister, on national television. “I want us to talk openly about the question: How can we now achieve the best outcome for the Social Democrats?”

“We can expect the SPD to now try to assert its own positions more forcefully within this coalition,” said Sabine Kropp, a political science professor at the Free University Berlin. “That will certainly not make governing easier for Friedrich Merz.”

The CDU performed well, though, despite growing anxiety about Germany’s economic future as the country’s key manufacturing sectors decline and the fallout from the U.S.-Israel war with Iran mounts. The party improved on its performance compared to the last election in Rhineland-Palatinate, gaining more than 3 percentage points of vote share compared to its 27.7 percent haul last time.

Jens Spahn, the CDU’s general secretary, stuck to his party’s key messages on Sunday. “We need growth again in Germany after three years of recession and stagnation,” he said. “That is the defining issue for the nation. It is also the defining issue for the [federal] coalition … We are very aware of that.”

The AfD has increasingly been hitting Merz on that theme, with some success. In two states in the former East Germany where elections are set for September, the AfD is so far ahead in polls that its leaders hope to secure an absolute majority in at least one of the contests, a result that would bring the party to real governing power for the first time since its founding in 2013.

“While you go on and on about world politics, German industry is collapsing,” Weidel, the AfD leader, told Merz in the Bundestag earlier this week. “The exodus is in full swing.”