AfD tops a German state poll for the first time since 1945

The AfD won 44.6% in Saxony-Anhalt on Saturday, more than double its 2021 share, giving it 39 of 84 seats and putting it three short of an outright majority, according to ARD's Infratest dimap projections. Friedrich Merz's CDU collapsed to under 19%, its worst result in the state's history. Every mainstream party still refuses to govern with AfD, so expect a fragile three-way coalition rather than an AfD government, but the arithmetic keeps getting worse for the parties trying to hold that line. For a Merz chancellorship built partly on the promise of containing the far right, this is the clearest evidence yet that the strategy is failing east of the old border.