German Conservatives Face Pressure to Avert Unexpected Loss in State Vote
Friedrich Merz’s CDU is working to consolidate support and avoid an unexpected setback as voters head to the polls in a key German state election.
Polls opened in the state at 8 am (0700 GMT) and will close at 6 pm, when the first exit polls will be released.
The election on Sunday is the first of five major regional votes across Germany this year, with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) expected to showcase its growing strength after finishing second in last year’s national elections.
The anti-immigrant party is expected to double its 9% share of the vote from the last state election in Baden-Württemberg in 2021, despite the local AfD chapter being under investigation by intelligence services as a suspected right-wing extremist group.
Greens seek unlikely comeback
Germany’s third-largest state by both area and population, Baden-Württemberg is known as an economic powerhouse and one of the heartlands of Germany’s crucial carmaking industry, with both Mercedes-Benz and Porsche headquartered in the state.
Surveys have found economic growth at the top of voters’ concerns, with the state’s industrial giants announcing a series of job cuts as the German economy struggles to kick into gear.
Traditionally a CDU stronghold, Baden-Württemberg has been led since 2011 by the Greens under moderate outgoing Premier Winfried Kretschmann.
But the party was seen as highly unlikely to return to power after a nationwide drop in support, falling 16 points behind the CDU in polling in late 2024 and garnering just 13.6% of the vote in the state in the 2025 federal elections.
Lead candidate Cem Özdemir, the former agriculture minister, has overseen a remarkable turnaround in recent weeks, with a poll on Thursday finding the top two parties level on 28%.
The Greens could also stand to benefit from a change to electoral laws lowering the voting age to 16.
Trouble for Merz?
The CDU’s hopes have been damaged by a video resurfacing showing a 29-year-old Hagel, then a lawmaker in the state parliament, boasting of a visit to a school classroom featuring “80% girls.”
“There are worse appointments than this for 29-year-old lawmakers,” he said in the video, before commenting: “I will never forget the first question. Her name was Eva, brown hair, fawn-coloured eyes.”
A YouGov poll commissioned this week by dpa found 47% of respondents who had heard of the video reporting it had negatively affected their view of Hagel.
Should the Greens manage to pull off a surprise comeback, questions will likely also be asked of Merz’s leadership after a difficult first year in office in coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) in Berlin.
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A defeat would pile pressure on the CDU to win the next election on March 22 in neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate, where the SPD currently lead the state government.
An even more challenging vote looms in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt in September, where the CDU is expected to lose heavily to the AfD. The far-right party could even seize power from the CDU with an unprecedented absolute majority, allowing it to enter a state government for the first time in its history.
Merz’s party could also lose its grip on the capital Berlin, which votes later in September alongside the north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
With huge obstacles to come in the coming months, holding on in Baden-Württemberg appears increasingly important for Merz.
By Tom Tutton and David Nau, dpa
