German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he would remain in office and press ahead with his government’s reform program after exit-poll projections indicated severe losses for his Christian Democratic Union in two state elections on September 20. The results in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin added to a run of poor electoral news for the centre-right party and renewed questions about Merz’s leadership.
In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, public broadcasters ARD and ZDF projected the Alternative for Germany narrowly ahead with about 38% of the vote, followed by the Social Democrats on roughly 35%. The CDU initially appeared close to its weakest result in the state, then slipped below the 5% threshold required for representation in the regional parliament. Merz described that outcome as a disaster for his party.
The projected outcome did not give the AfD a clear route into government. Other parties have said they will not cooperate with it, making coalition arithmetic decisive even if the party finishes first. Some AfD branches have been classified as right-wing extremist by German domestic intelligence, a description the party rejects. The party’s national co-leader Alice Weidel presented the projection as evidence that it had become the state’s dominant political force.
Berlin delivered a separate setback. Exit polls placed The Left first on nearly 26%, ahead of the governing CDU on about 19%. The AfD was projected to increase its support to approximately 16%. Final results were expected later on election night or on September 21, so the figures available when Merz spoke remained projections rather than certified totals.
Merz responded by linking his political future to a package of economic, tax and welfare changes planned by the federal coalition. He argued that those reforms remained necessary and said he intended to continue both as chancellor and CDU chairman. His position had already been under scrutiny after the CDU’s vote was halved in Saxony-Anhalt two weeks earlier, where the AfD recorded a major victory.
The chancellor also received support from senior figures in his party. Berlin CDU politician Burkard Dregger said the federal government should be allowed time to complete its work and argued against changing leadership after little more than a year. Leaders of eight German states had publicly backed Merz before the September 20 votes.
The immediate political impact will depend on certified results and the coalitions that emerge in both states. Even without final totals, however, the projections showed the CDU losing ground in two very different electorates while rivals on both the left and right advanced. Merz’s promise to stay shifts attention to whether his reform agenda can reverse that trend before the next major electoral test.
