The Left finished first in Berlin's state election on Sunday with 25.7 percent, and the Alternative for Germany placed first in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with 38.2 percent, according to provisional results. Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Christian Democrats finished a distant second in the capital at 18.8 percent and fell to 4.9 percent in the northeast, below the five-percent threshold. It is the first time the CDU has failed to win seats in a German state election.

Merz called the northeast result a "disaster" that could not be spun away. The party, he said, had been ground down between the Social Democrats and the AfD.

The votes came two weeks after the AfD won Saxony-Anhalt on Sept. 6 with 43.8 percent and 39 of 83 seats, three short of governing alone. Turnout rose in both of Sunday's races, to 74.2 percent in Berlin and past 78 percent in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Berlin's was the first state election in the capital open to 16- and 17-year-olds.

Holm claims the mandate in Schwerin

In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Minister-President Manuela Schwesig's SPD took 35.5 percent, the Left 6.5 percent and the Greens 5.7 percent. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance missed the threshold at 4.8 percent.

Election-night seat projections gave the AfD about 32 seats and the SPD about 29 in a 71-seat chamber, with the Left and Greens near five each. A majority requires 36. That leaves Schwesig a path to an SPD–Left–Greens government, since all three have ruled out governing with the AfD.

Leif-Erik Holm, the AfD's candidate for premier, claimed the right to form the next government, saying voters had given his party that mandate "massively" and that he expected other parties to talk. He and AfD list leader Enrico Schult said they were ready for those conversations. Schwesig's campaign cast the race as "Woman Against Blue," a personal contest with Holm, and she held her Schwerin district against him by a wide margin. Holm, who was not secured on the party list, is not expected to enter the legislature.

Left wins Berlin on housing

In Berlin, the AfD took 16.3 percent, up from 9.1 percent in 2023. The Greens took 14.3 percent and the SPD 12.1 percent, its lowest result in the chamber. The BSW missed entry at 4.7 percent. The outgoing CDU–SPD coalition lost its majority.

Elif Eralp, the Left's lead candidate, said the party would seek to form a government. If talks succeed, she would become Berlin's first Left governing mayor and the first with a Turkish migrant family background. The CDU ran with Finance Senator Stefan Evers after Governing Mayor Kai Wegner stepped aside as lead candidate in July, following criticism of his handling of a winter power outage, including a tennis outing during the crisis.

Housing drove the Left's result. An Infratest dimap survey found 37 percent of Berliners said the Left understands affordable housing best, against 8 percent for the CDU. The same survey found 46 percent approved of a Left–Green–SPD coalition, but only 30 percent wanted the Left to lead one.

Merz digs in

Merz called Berlin an "ordentliches Ergebnis," a decent result for Evers after a difficult handover. He had announced a consumer relief package on Friday that includes tax cuts on gasoline and diesel.

He said he would remain chancellor and CDU chair, rejected any return to an imagined old normal, and said Germany must again become a "country of new beginnings." Reforms, he argued, are the answer to the "authoritarian poison" spreading through society with a fascination for authoritarianism.