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
