Preliminary results show that Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is set to take first place with 30.9 percent of the vote, taking control of the state premiership from the SPD after 35 years of opposition. Results as of 8.30pm show that the SPD’s vote had fallen by about 10 percent, to 25.8 percent.
“This is historic for us,” Jens Spahn, leader of the CDU parliamentary group in Berlin, told public broadcaster ARD on Sunday. “It gives us in the CDU strength at the federal level. But of course, the praise goes above all to our colleagues at the grassroots,” he added.
The CDU’s main candidate in Rhineland-Palatinate, Gordon Schnieder, signaled a combative campaign. “We had that will to win; I’ve felt it in the last few months,” Gordon Schnieder said on ARD television.
But the biggest winner in vote share was the far-right AfD, which doubled its support to 19.8 percent compared to the last state election five years ago when it got 8.3 percent of the vote. A strong show comes after the AfD a third-place performance in the Baden-Württemberg state election earlier this monthshow how the party has managed to gain a foothold outside its eastern strongholds. The result in Rhineland-Palatinate is the AfD’s best result in a western German state.
The Rhineland-Palatinate election was the second of five state contests held this year in what the Germans call a General election year – or “general election year” – which is seen as a key test of the national mood as the AfD seeks to overtake Merz’s conservatives in national opinion polls. The AfD is on course for a landslide victory in two eastern states in September elections, according to opinion polls.
“We have achieved a record result,” Alice Weidel, one of the AfD’s national leaders, said on Sunday. “The voters appreciate the work we have done as an opposition party, and we will continue in this way so that we can join the government in the next election,” he added.
