STUTTGART: The German Greens on Sunday looked set to narrowly beat Friedrich Merz's conservative CDU in a regional election, projections showed, dealing the chancellor a blow ahead of elections this year as surveys show the far right surging.
With almost all votes counted, a projection for public broadcaster ARD put the Baden-Wuerttemberg Greens, led by Cem Ozdemir, on 30.3 percent and the state CDU, led by Manuel Hagel, on 29.7 percent.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was meanwhile on track to post the biggest increase in vote share, roughly doubling its result compared with 2021 elections, and to take third place with about 18.7 percent of the vote.
If confirmed, it would be the party's best ever result in a west German state, beating the 18.4 percent gathered in 2023 elections in Hesse.
Baden-Wuerttemberg's neighbour, Rhineland-Pfalz, votes in a couple of weeks and September will see a series of regional votes in ex-communist eastern Germany, where the AfD can expect to perform well.
'Avoiding' key issues
Hagel, a 37-year-old former bank manager, led the CDU in the campaign and hit a rough patch after an eight-year-old video emerged in which he commented on female students' appearances after a school visit, earning condemnation from across the political spectrum.
Speaking after exit polls emerged, Hagel thanked his family for their patience.
"I would like to thank my family, especially my wife, because, frankly speaking, the last few weeks have been an enormous strain on my wife, my family and me personally," he said.
The Greens' candidate, Cem Ozdemir, 60, is now likely to become Germany's first state premier of Turkish heritage, subject to coalition negotiations.
"The next chapter won't be one that we write by ourselves but rather with a coalition partner," he said.
"It will be, it has to be a partnership of equals," he added.
The AfD's likely result is its record in Baden-Wuerttemberg but behind the 25 percent it polls nationally.
On Friday, Merz attended the CDU's final campaign rally and said the vote would be watched outside Germany to answer the question: "Is the CDU still able to win elections, even when in government at such a turbulent time?"
A prosperous part of Germany that is a bastion of the country's ailing automotive industry, Baden-Wuerttemberg was for years a stronghold of the conservative CDU.
Polls showed that the economy was the most important topic for voters by some distance but not everyone thought it was taken seriously.
Brian Fuerderer, 34, the head of a local company making surgical equipment, told AFP ahead of the vote that he had found the electoral campaign "weak".
The parties were "avoiding the most essential issue... the economy" as well as the country's dependence on foreign energy supplies, thrown into stark relief by the Middle East war.
Merz has repeatedly promised to boost Germany's moribund economy and to that end lobbied the EU to weaken its ban on new combustion-engine cars after 2035.
Even the Greens' Ozdemir has said there should be more flexibility in the transition to electric vehicles.
Ozdemir has a national profile in Germany, having become one of the first MPs of Turkish origin in 1994 and serving as agriculture minister under former SPD chancellor Olaf Scholz.
The AfD's lead candidate, Markus Frohnmaier, has attracted national attention for his links to Russia and US President Donald Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.
Speaking shortly after exit polls, Frohnmaier said the results showed there was a clear "conservative majority" in Baden-Wuerttemberg.
But the CDU, in common with Germany's other major parties, refuses coalitions with the AfD, considering it a dangerous far-right force.