German states vote as far-right gains threaten Merz's leadership

About 3.8 million voters across two German states are casting ballots on Sunday in elections that have forced Chancellor Friedrich Merz to abandon his international schedule and convene an emergency party meeting. The stakes are personal and political: Merz's approval rating has collapsed to 14 percent after just 16 months in office, and the results in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania could determine whether he can hold his coalition together or faces a leadership challenge from within his own Christian Democratic Union.

The pressure has been building for weeks. Two weeks before these elections, the far-right Alternative for Germany party delivered a stunning blow in Saxony-Anhalt, falling just short of an absolute majority that would have let it govern alone. That result sent tremors through European capitals and forced Merz to recalibrate. He skipped this week's UN General Assembly in New York—a significant absence for a sitting chancellor—and cleared his calendar to manage the fallout. The message was unmistakable: these regional votes matter enough to reshape his entire week.

Merz's coalition with the center-left Social Democratic Party has become a liability rather than a stabilizing force. He promised economic and social welfare reforms during his campaign, but governing with partners who resist his agenda has left him looking ineffectual. Fellow CDU members are beginning to whisper doubts about whether he can survive as party leader if Sunday's results go badly. In a party that has known only one chancellor for 16 years before Merz took over, patience for a struggling leader runs thin.

In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a northeastern coastal state with nearly 1.3 million eligible voters, the CDU has been reduced to a bystander. The real contest is between the state's popular Social Democratic premier, Manuela Schwesig, and the AfD's lead candidate, Leif-Erik Holm, a former radio presenter. The latest polling shows the AfD at 36 percent and the SPD at 37 percent—a statistical dead heat. Merz's party, meanwhile, sits at just 6 percent, dangerously close to the 5 percent threshold required to maintain any seats in the state parliament. Falling below that line would be a humiliation.

Berlin presents a different but equally treacherous battlefield. The capital's ruling CDU faces a tight race against Die Linke, the far-left party that has built support by promising aggressive solutions to Berlin's severe housing shortage and appeals strongly to younger voters. Die Linke also advocates curbing corporate power and maintains a sympathetic stance toward Moscow—positions that make a CDU loss to them particularly stinging for Merz. A defeat in the capital would compound the damage from Saxony-Anhalt and raise fresh questions about his viability.

These are regional elections, the kind that normally attract little attention beyond Germany's borders. But the AfD's trajectory has changed that calculus. The party views its Saxony-Anhalt performance not as a regional victory but as a proof of concept—a first step toward winning the federal elections scheduled for 2029. That ambition has alarmed European governments watching a far-right party gain momentum in Germany's political center. Polling booths open at 8am local time on Sunday and close at 6pm. By evening, Germany will know whether Merz's political crisis deepens or whether he has found a way to stabilize his position.