Two German states hold elections on Sunday at the halfway mark of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's unpopular national government, with polls showing the center-right opposition well ahead and Germany's interior minister facing an uphill struggle in a bid to become governor of her home region.
About 9.4 million people are eligible to vote for the new state legislature in Bavaria and around 4.3 million in neighboring Hesse, a region that includes Germany's financial capital, Frankfurt. Both states are led by the country's main opposition Union bloc, made up of the Christian Democratic Union and the Bavaria-only Christian Social Union.
