Merz vows to stay despite CDU's 'disaster' in German state elections

Friedrich Merz stood at the podium in his party's Berlin headquarters on Sunday night as the election results scrolled across the screens behind him, and there was nothing to celebrate. The exit polls from two state elections told a story of collapse: his centre-right Christian Democratic Union had fallen below the 5% threshold needed to keep seats in the parliament of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern—the party's worst showing in any German state since the end of World War Two. In Berlin, his ruling CDU was being beaten by Die Linke, a party that had never topped the capital's polls before. Merz called the results "a disaster."

Yet he announced he would not step down. Instead, he doubled down. "The reforms have to come," he told reporters, his voice steady. "I am taking on this responsibility, because I want to move our country forward." He spoke of the need for backbone and steadfastness, framing the economic, tax, and welfare overhauls his coalition government was pushing as an antidote to what he called the "authoritarian poison" seeping into German society. It was a defiant performance from a chancellor who has been in office for only sixteen months and is now facing the most serious threat to his political survival since taking power.

The real winner of the evening was the far-right Alternative for Germany, the AfD. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the party was projected to capture 38% of the vote, with the centre-left SPD finishing second at 35%. In Berlin, the AfD was on track to claim 16% of the vote. Across the country, the party's anti-immigration message, its German-first nationalism, and its friendliness toward Russia have found deep resonance, particularly in the former communist east. Alice Weidel, the AfD's national co-leader, declared: "We are the strongest force and have reached the mainstream of the population." The party's branches are classified by German domestic intelligence as right-wing extremist—a designation the AfD rejects—yet other parties have largely refused to form coalitions with it, meaning the AfD's electoral strength has not yet translated into governing power.

Merz's position has been precarious for weeks. His approval ratings have sagged. Rumors have circulated that he could be replaced mid-term in what Germans call a chancellor swap. The timing of Sunday's elections made matters worse: they came just two weeks after the CDU's vote was cut in half in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD won a major victory. Before Sunday's ballots, eight German state leaders had publicly backed Merz, a show of support that suggested real anxiety about his future. Burkard Dregger, a CDU politician in Berlin, defended Merz to the BBC on election night, arguing that the chancellor deserved time to deliver results. "He has got four years and we have to give him the four years," Dregger said, noting that the electorate was impatient but that it was unrealistic to expect every problem to be solved in a single year.

Merz's strategy has been to move rightward on immigration and other issues, hoping to reclaim voters drawn to the AfD. The approach has not worked. Instead, his pivot has alienated people on the left while failing to stem the AfD's advance. Merz, a former corporate lawyer who long coveted the chancellorship, is unlikely to surrender the office without a fight. But the math is becoming harder to ignore: his party is bleeding support in the east, the AfD is consolidating power, and the public appetite for his government's agenda appears to be weakening. The question now is whether his determination to stay and push through reforms will be enough to stabilize his position, or whether the pressure from within his own party will eventually force a reckoning.