BERLIN — Polling stations closed on Sunday evening in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after two regional elections that have become a significant political test for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his Christian Democratic Union. The first projections released by public broadcaster ZDF at 18:00 local time showed sharply different contests in the two states. In Berlin, the left-wing Die Linke was projected to finish first with 26% of the vote, ahead of the CDU on 20%. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the Alternative for Germany was projected on 38%, narrowly ahead of the governing Social Democratic Party on 36.5%.
The figures were initial projections by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen rather than counted final results. They were based primarily on surveys of voters after they had cast their ballots. Actual votes were being counted after the polls closed, with later projections expected to incorporate returns from representative districts. The distinction is particularly important in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where several parties were clustered around the 5% threshold required for representation in the regional parliament. Small changes during the count could therefore have significant consequences for the eventual distribution of seats.
ZDF’s Berlin projection put the Greens at 15.5%, the AfD at 13.5%, the SPD at 12% and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, or BSW, at exactly 5%. The numbers pointed to a fragmented new House of Representatives and immediately shifted attention toward the coalition negotiations that will follow the official result. Finishing first does not automatically give a party control of Berlin’s government; a governing majority must ultimately be assembled in the legislature, and the identity of the next governing mayor will depend on those negotiations.
About 2.5 million people were eligible to participate in the Berlin election. Voters chose a new House of Representatives as well as representatives for the capital’s twelve borough assemblies. Polling stations operated from 08:00 until 18:00. The campaign focused heavily on housing costs, public infrastructure, transport, security and the performance of city government, while national political arguments increasingly entered the final days of campaigning as the position of the CDU and Merz attracted greater scrutiny.
The CDU entered the election defending its status as Berlin’s largest party after receiving 28.2% in the city’s 2023 repeat election. The SPD and Greens each recorded 18.4% at that vote, Die Linke 12.2% and the AfD 9.1%. If Sunday’s initial projection is confirmed by the count, the composition of the capital’s political landscape would therefore be substantially different, with Die Linke gaining strongly while the CDU and SPD would be below their previous shares. The AfD’s projected vote would also be above its 2023 result, although below some of the party’s final pre-election polling figures.
The Berlin campaign also carried federal significance because Merz personally appeared at campaign events for the CDU’s lead candidate, Stefan Evers. ZDF reported shortly before polls closed that Merz was preparing to make a statement at the CDU’s national headquarters in Berlin after the first projections were published. That made the election-night response from the chancellor an immediate focus, even though the vote itself concerned the capital’s state parliament rather than the federal government.
In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the first projection produced an even closer contest. ZDF put the AfD at 38%, the SPD at 36.5%, Die Linke at 6%, the Greens at 5.5%, the CDU at 5% and BSW at 4.8%. With the CDU precisely on the threshold and BSW just below it, subsequent counting could alter not only which parties enter the Landtag but also the arithmetic for any governing coalition.
Roughly 1.3 million voters were eligible to participate in the northeastern state, where SPD state premier Manuela Schwesig was seeking another term. The principal electoral contest had narrowed in the final days between Schwesig’s SPD and the AfD, led in the state by Leif-Erik Holm. A Forschungsgruppe Wahlen survey released shortly before the election had placed the SPD on 37% and the AfD on 36%, meaning the first election-night projection reversed that narrow order while still leaving the two parties separated by less than two percentage points.
The CDU’s position in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was particularly important for Merz’s party. Reuters reported before voting that the latest Forschungsgruppe Wahlen poll had the CDU on only 6%, close to the 5% threshold. Associated Press also noted that falling below the threshold would leave the CDU without seats in a German state legislature for the first time. The 18:00 ZDF projection put it exactly at 5%, leaving that question unresolved as counting began.
The comparison with the state’s previous election illustrates the scale of the political shift. In 2021, the SPD won 39.6%, the AfD received 16.7%, the CDU 13.3%, Die Linke 9.9% and the Greens 6.3%. Sunday’s initial projection therefore showed the SPD remaining close to its previous level while the AfD’s share had more than doubled. The CDU, meanwhile, was projected well below its 2021 result. Those figures remain provisional until the official count is completed.
Coalition formation in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania could prove complicated regardless of which of the two leading parties ultimately finishes first. Germany’s other major parties have continued to reject formal governing coalitions with the AfD, a policy commonly referred to as the political “firewall.” Reuters reported during the campaign that the strategy has come under renewed discussion as the AfD’s vote share has increased in eastern Germany. Being the largest party therefore would not by itself guarantee control of the state government if no parliamentary majority can be assembled behind it.
The wider national importance of Sunday’s voting stems heavily from events two weeks earlier in Saxony-Anhalt. In the September 6 state election there, the AfD won 43.8% of the vote and secured 39 seats in the 83-member parliament, falling short of an absolute majority but finishing far ahead of the CDU, which received 17.2%. That result accelerated debate inside Germany’s mainstream parties about how to respond to the AfD’s growth while maintaining their refusal to govern with it.
The Saxony-Anhalt result also intensified attention on Merz personally. He became chancellor in 2025 after campaigning on economic reform and a promise to restore stronger growth in Europe’s largest economy. Reuters reported ahead of Sunday’s vote that some recent polling had placed his approval rating as low as 14%. The agency said dissatisfaction over economic conditions, pensions, taxes and healthcare policy had contributed to tensions surrounding his government, while senior CDU figures had publicly continued to support him.
Merz sought to put economic policy back at the center of the national debate immediately before the regional elections. Reuters reported that he presented a consumer-relief package on Friday that included tax reductions affecting gasoline and diesel. Cost-of-living pressures featured prominently during campaigning in both states, particularly in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where voters interviewed by Reuters cited household expenses and purchasing power among their concerns.
Housing was a major issue in Berlin, where rising rents and limited supply have remained central to the political debate. Die Linke placed housing policy and stronger controls on large property interests near the center of its campaign, while the CDU emphasized stability, infrastructure, security and administrative performance. The Greens, SPD, AfD and BSW also competed in a race in which relatively small movements in vote share could materially affect possible governing combinations.
The national implications of the elections should nevertheless be distinguished from their constitutional effect. Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania elect their own regional legislatures; the results do not change the composition of the Bundestag and cannot directly remove a federal chancellor. Under Article 67 of Germany’s Basic Law, the Bundestag can dismiss a chancellor through a constructive vote of no confidence only by simultaneously electing a successor with a majority of its members. Sunday’s votes therefore function as political signals rather than federal confidence votes.
That distinction has not prevented the results from becoming closely watched indicators of Merz’s standing within the CDU. Both Reuters and the Associated Press reported growing discussion inside the party after the Saxony-Anhalt defeat, although senior national CDU figures had not publicly demanded Merz’s resignation before Sunday’s voting. AP reported that Merz had also dropped a planned trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York as he prepared for the domestic political aftermath of the elections.
The two contests also highlight the increasingly different political landscapes within Germany. Berlin, a large metropolitan city-state with a younger and more internationally diverse population, produced an initial projection led by Die Linke. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a sparsely populated northeastern state on the Baltic Sea, produced a projection led narrowly by the AfD. Yet both elections showed fragmentation beyond the traditional CDU-SPD competition that dominated much of Germany’s postwar politics.
For the SPD, Sunday offered contrasting circumstances. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schwesig remained highly competitive with the AfD and entered election day with stronger personal ratings than her challenger in pre-election surveys. In Berlin, by contrast, the SPD was projected at 12%, behind Die Linke, the CDU, the Greens and the AfD. The party is also Merz’s coalition partner at the federal level, meaning its regional results will be examined for their implications for relations inside the national government as well as for state-level coalition negotiations.
The AfD’s performance will receive similar scrutiny. Although the party was projected to lead narrowly in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the initial Berlin projection put it behind Die Linke, the CDU and the Greens. The different figures underline the regional variation in its support. The party has gained its strongest results in several eastern states, while its position in major western and urban areas remains less uniform.
Election night will therefore proceed on two separate tracks. In Berlin, attention will center on whether Die Linke’s projected lead survives the count and what combination of parties could command a majority in the new House of Representatives. In Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the immediate questions are whether the AfD or SPD finishes first and whether the CDU, Greens and BSW cross the 5% threshold. Those threshold outcomes can change the seat distribution even if the leading parties’ overall vote shares move only slightly.
The final political consequences for Merz will depend not simply on which party finishes first but also on the scale of the CDU’s performance, the reactions of party officials and the coalition arrangements that emerge in the two states. State elections often reflect local candidates and regional issues as much as attitudes toward the federal government, making them an imperfect measure of national voting intentions. The results nevertheless arrive at a sensitive moment for the chancellor following the CDU’s defeat in Saxony-Anhalt and amid an active debate over Germany’s economic direction and the rise of the AfD.
As counting continued on Sunday evening, the first projections provided an early indication but not the final verdict. ZDF and ARD were expected to update their estimates as actual district results became available, while provisional official totals were expected later in the night. Until then, the narrow margins in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the threshold positions of several smaller parties mean that the composition of both legislatures — and the coalition negotiations that follow — remains subject to change.
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