Merz’s CDU wins election in key German state, as support for AfD surges

Nationalist AfD nearly triples share of vote in local polls in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, preliminary results show.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative party has won local elections in the country’s most populous state, while the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) nearly tripled its share of the vote from five years ago.

Merz’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won about 33.3 percent of the vote in his home state of North Rhine-Westphalia, preliminary results showed on Monday.

The centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) came in second with 22.1 percent, followed by the AfD, which won 14.5 percent.

The figure marks a 9.4 percentage-point increase in support for the nationalist, anti-immigration party since the last election.

North Rhine-Westphalia Premier Hendrik Wust, of the CDU, hailed the outcome, calling his state the “powerhouse” of the governing party.

But the strong showing for the AfD, he said, “must give us food for thought”.

He said it “cannot let us sleep peacefully” and that centrist politicians must ask themselves “what the right answers are when it comes to poverty and migration”.

AfD’s coleaders were jubilant.

Alice Weidel called the results a “huge success”, while Tino Chrupalla offered congratulations to the party’s supporters.

“This is a great success for us,” Chrupalla wrote in a post on X. “We are a people’s party and we all bear a great responsibility for Germany.”