Submission Statement: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party is facing a dire set of results in state elections, exit polls show, and is set to be squeezed both by the surging far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and parties on the left.
The AfD is projected to win the north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on 38%, the exit poll from Germany’s public broadcaster shows, just two weeks after the party had its best result yet in Saxony-Anhalt.
In the other election on Sunday, the left-wing Die Linke party leads in Berlin on 26%, followed by the CDU and the Greens, according to the exit polls.
AfD co-leader Alice Weidel was gleeful as the exit polls were announced, telling CNN that her party is “clearly the new people’s party in Germany.”
“We have overtaken the CDU, and people want a change of policy,” Weidel said. She described Merz as “strongly damaged,” adding: “I believe the CDU cannot continue with Friedrich Merz, with a weak chancellor.”
Sunday’s elections come at a critical moment for Merz, arriving just two weeks after the AfD delivered a crushing blow to his party with a historic state election victory in Saxony-Anhalt, where it took 44% of the vote.
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