Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives posted their worst-ever result in a German state election, where exit polls showed his party with single-digit support in a northeastern Baltic coast region and trailing a far-left party in Berlin.

The Christian Democratic Union won 5.5% of the vote in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Sunday, according to an exit poll from broadcaster ARD, putting it dangerously close to a threshold required to enter the regional assembly. The far-right Alternative for Germany more than doubled its support to 37%, while the the long-dominant Social Democrats secured 35.5%.

“We can’t sugarcoat it, it was a disaster,” Merz told reporters in Berlin in a statement directly after exit polls were released, pledging to press on with his reform agenda as party leader and chancellor. He had gathered senior CDU leaders to party headquarters, where he planned to gauge their support for his leadership.

It’s the latest blow two weeks after Merz’s party suffered a stunning defeat to anti-immigration AfD in Saxony-Anhalt, another eastern state that could have the first far-right government in the country since World War II. Sunday’s showing could mark the first time the party is expelled from a state parliament since the founding of the federal republic in 1949.

In Berlin, Merz’s party, which has governed the German capital since 2023, trailed the anti-capitalist Left party. The Left, which advocates the expropriation of large housing companies, won 24.5% support, while the CDU secured 20%, the ARD exit poll showed.

The fallout from the AfD’s victory in Saxon-Anhalt has shaken Germany’s political establishment and stoked calls within the party to push Merz out after only 16 months in office. Polls show his personal popularity at a record low for any postwar chancellor.

Eight CDU premiers this week sought to defuse any standoff with a declaration that they stood behind the chancellor, but doubts have lingered over whether it was enough to restore Merz’s authority.

Merz, who declared after the Saxony-Anhalt debacle that “giving up is not an option,” is determined to stay put, insisting that he plans to see through his agenda to overhaul Germany’s pension, healthcare and income tax system. Despite the setbacks, Merz continues to see himself on a mission to save Germany, a person familiar with his thinking said.

But many party officials are convinced that his stewardship can only do more harm — and that, whether he remains in power after this political cycle, his departure will come sooner rather than later.

The election in the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania was the latest demonstration of the AfD’s appeal, with the far-right party more than doubling its support in an eastern state with calls to deport migrants and oppose military support for Ukraine and its attacks on the political establishment.

Still, the AfD in the state is well short of an absolute majority that would give it a mandate to govern the region, in contrast with the party in Saxony-Anhalt, where it aims to secure enough votes to install a state premier next month.

In the German capital, polls had shown the CDU, which took power in 2023 for the first time in more than two decades, trailing the Left party, which has campaigned on an affordability platform and a pledge to expropriate the housing portfolios of large real-estate companies. Its lead candidate, Elif Eralp, the daughter of political refugees, would become the first mayor of Turkish descent.

A loss to the Left party, which traces part of its roots to the East German communist party, would deal another blow to Merz. But with a range of parties in contention, it isn’t immediately clear whether the CDU will be able to lead a government or the Left forges a coalition with the Greens and SPD.

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(With assistance from Kamil Kowalcze.)

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