Merz's political survival at stake as German voters head to polls amid far-right surge

Friedrich Merz arrived at one of the most precarious moments of his political career on a Sunday in late September, watching as roughly 3.8 million German voters prepared to cast ballots in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The chancellor, who had held office for just sixteen months, was not in New York addressing the United Nations as originally planned. Instead, he remained in Berlin, his presence deemed essential by government officials as the country's far-right Alternative für Deutschland party—buoyed by a stunning regional victory two weeks earlier—prepared to claim more ground.

The timing was brutal. In Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD had just achieved its strongest performance in any regional election, falling just short of an absolute majority that would have allowed it to govern alone. The party, defined by its anti-immigration stance and alignment with Russia, had mobilized voters who had previously sat out elections entirely, channeling their anxieties about the economy, crime, and Germany's military support for Ukraine into electoral power. Now, as Merz watched the polls open at eight in the morning, the question was not whether the AfD would gain ground again, but how much damage his own party would sustain in the process.

Merz's position had deteriorated sharply. His personal approval rating had collapsed to ten percent—a figure that reflected the gap between his campaign promises and the reality voters were experiencing. He had pledged to restore economic growth to Europe's largest economy and to contain the AfD's rise. Neither had happened. Instead, soaring energy prices, deindustrialisation in critical sectors like automaking, and persistent housing crises had left Germans angry and receptive to the far right's message. Even as border arrivals had declined significantly under his watch, the AfD's voters were unmoved, their concerns rooted in something deeper than immigration statistics alone.

In Berlin, the capital's housing emergency had become a political flashpoint. Roughly eighty-five percent of households rented their homes, and advertised rents had nearly doubled since 2014. The far-left Die Linke party was challenging Merz's CDU for first place by calling for corporate landlord expropriations, while the AfD polled strongly in third or fourth position even in this cosmopolitan city. The CDU's candidate, Stefan Evers, had taken over after the previous mayor, Kai Wegner, abandoned his re-election bid in July following a scandal—he had been caught playing tennis while large sections of Berlin suffered a power blackout triggered by arson the previous winter.

But Berlin's struggles paled beside what was unfolding in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the Baltic coast state where the CDU faced its most existential threat. The AfD and the Social Democrats were locked in a tight race while Merz's party risked falling below the five percent threshold required for parliamentary representation—a result that would be unprecedented in the postwar period and would mark a historic collapse for the chancellor's political standing. Regional CDU leaders had already begun blaming Merz's weakness for their poor positioning, a sign that internal party pressure was building.

Economists and political analysts were beginning to calculate the odds of Merz's survival. Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg bank, still expected Merz to serve his full four-year term, but he estimated the risk of a CDU revolt—a move to replace him as chancellor before the 2029 general election—had risen from twenty percent to roughly thirty-five percent in the span of ten days. The Saxony-Anhalt shock had concentrated minds within his own party. Some Christian Democrats were already whispering about alternatives, about whether another figure might stanch the bleeding.

Merz had resisted calls to resign. "We as a government were elected for four years, I was elected for four years," he had told an industry group, vowing to use that time to lead Germany out of its difficulties. But as the polling booths closed at six in the evening and exit polls began to emerge, the question was whether his party would grant him the runway he was claiming. The AfD's momentum was undeniable, built on economic grievance and a willingness to mobilize voters whom mainstream parties had written off. Tens of thousands of Germans had taken to the streets in anti-AfD protests after Saxony-Anhalt, hoping to rally support for democratic parties. Whether that energy would translate into votes, or whether Sunday's results would deepen the sense that the political center was collapsing, would become clear within hours.