Germany’s chancellor won a convincing election in his home state, while the anti-immigration AfD party tripled its vote share in what is seen as a bellwether region.
Friedrich Merz’s CDU garnered more than a third of the vote, and the AfD saw its share rise to 15%. The bump is part of a wider surge for the far right across Europe: Such populist parties simultaneously topped opinion polls in Britain, France, and Germany last month for the first time in modern history.
Just yesterday, more than 100,000 anti-immigration protesters packed central London on Sunday, while in France, President Emmanuel Macron is resisting intense pressure to call snap parliamentary elections — a vote the far right would likely win.