As reported on Instagram
Germany's final state elections of 2026 delivered the Christian Democratic Union its worst night in the party's postwar history. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on September 20, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) finished first with 38.2 percent of the vote, while Chancellor Friedrich Merz's CDU fell to 4.9 percent — below the 5 percent threshold needed to enter the state parliament. It was the first time since the founding of the Federal Republic in 1949 that the CDU has failed to win seats in a state legislature.
The result capped a bruising three weeks in the east. On September 6 in Saxony-Anhalt, a state the CDU had governed since 2002, the AfD took 43.8 percent — its strongest state result ever, three seats short of an outright majority — while the CDU's vote was cut roughly in half. On the same night as the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania vote, the CDU also lost Berlin, where the Left Party (Die Linke) won with 25.7 percent and the CDU slipped to 18.8 percent, down 9.5 points on the previous election.
Merz called the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania outcome a "disaster" and had already described Saxony-Anhalt as the CDU's worst defeat in many years. Speaking at party headquarters in Berlin, he said the task ahead required "backbone, steadfastness and patience," and vowed to muster all three — as CDU chairman and, above all, as chancellor. He said his coalition with the Social Democrats would continue with its planned economic, tax and welfare reforms, and the CDU's state premiers, who had publicly backed him before the vote, closed ranks against splitting the party leadership from the chancellery.
The numbers behind the defeats have kept the pressure on. A survey by public broadcaster ARD found only about one in ten Germans satisfied with Merz's work, the lowest rating recorded for any chancellor since the survey began in 1997. Talk of a possible mid-term replacement has focused on North Rhine-Westphalia premier Hendrik Wüst, who has dismissed the leadership speculation. AfD co-leader Alice Weidel predicted Merz would soon be out of office, and her co-leader Tino Chrupalla called his response to the results feeble and demanded he resign.
For the AfD, the victories still do not translate into power. Every other party refuses to govern with it under Germany's political "firewall," so in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where the AfD won 32 seats to the SPD's 29, Minister-President Manuela Schwesig's Social Democrats are expected to lead the next government. The AfD, founded in 2013 and now leading national opinion polls, campaigns on expelling foreigners who have no right to remain in Germany, restoring energy ties with Russia and leaving the euro; some of its regional branches are classified as right-wing extremist by the domestic intelligence agency. Its supporters say it gives a voice to voters in the east who feel ignored on immigration and economic pressures, while critics warn its rise is eroding the political centre on which Germany's postwar stability rests.
The strain has not eased since election night. In early October, AfD lawmaker Tobias Rausch was elected president of the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament in a secret ballot, backed by the left-populist BSW — a result Merz's own SPD coalition partners pressed him to explain. Merz responded by warning that extremism is forcing its way into the country's parliaments and that a vote for the AfD is incompatible with the values of his party. With the AfD ahead in national polling and the centre parties struggling to build workable coalitions, the question raised by the eastern results — whether Merz can regain control of the agenda, or whether the AfD's rise continues to hollow out traditional conservative leadership — remains open.