Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats party hits record low as rivals CDU win key German state election

Months after taking over from German chancellor Angela Merkel, Olaf Scholz and his Social Democrats (SPD) have suffered their second loss at the ballot box within two weeks in a key election seen as a test of national government policy.

The opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) won the most votes in Sunday’s election in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, while voter support for the SPD fell to a historic new low, according to projections from German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF.

The setback is the second in two weeks for the German chancellor, after his SPD, which is currently leading a three-party coalition government at the national level, limped to its worst result in Schleswig-Holstein’s state election earlier this month.

On Sunday, Germany’s biggest election of the year saw the SPD achieve between 27 and 28 per cent of the vote, according to projections – the party’s worst election result in North Rhine-Westphalia’s 76-year history.

The CDU meanwhile led the polls with 35.3 to 35.5 per cent, up 2 percentage points on the party’s 2017 result. The Greens made the greatest gains of all, increasing their share of the vote to between 17.9 and 18.3 per cent according to forecasts, tripling their result from the previous election in 2017.

As a result the state’s previous governing coalition, made up of the CDU and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) now no longer command a majority in the state parliament, paving the way for weeks of coalition talks.

The Greens are set to be kingmakers here, and the party must now decide between going into government with the CDU or the SPD. Initial polling suggest that while a two-party alliance would definitely be possible with the CDU, it may not be with the SPD.