German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats suffered their first defeat in a regional election since he took office in December, tumbling by some 12 percentage points in the state of Schleswig-Holstein while the Christian Democratic Union gained, according to exit polls.
The CDU, the main opposition party at the national level, was projected to take 43% of the vote in the northern region on Sunday while the SPD slumped to about 15.5%, which would be its worst result yet in the state of 2.9 million people, ARD public television projected.
The result is a setback for Scholz, who tried to support the local SPD candidate with a last-minute campaign appearance in the state capital Kiel last week.
