By James Mackenzie and Friederike Heine
BERLIN, March 22 (Reuters) - German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) took the lead in an election in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate on Sunday, ahead of their Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners who faced a "bitter" defeat after ruling the state for 35 years.
The first projection on the ARD broadcaster after polls closed showed Merz's CDU at 30.5% of the vote, ahead of the SPD at 26.9%, pointing to a likely victory for Merz after his party narrowly lost an election in the neighbouring state of Baden-Wuerttemberg on March 8.
CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann called it a "great result" that showed strong overall support for the two partners in Merz's coalition.
"If the result stays this way, the CDU/CSU and SPD will have more than 50% of the vote, which is also a strong result for the centrist parties," Linnemann said, referring to the CDU's sister party in Bavaria.
For Merz, battling to shore up Western support for Ukraine and facing the looming threat of an energy shock caused by the Iran war, victory in Rhineland-Palatinate would be a relief after the narrow loss his party suffered two weeks ago.
But the result would be a heavy blow to his Berlin coalition partners in the SPD, still reeling from their disastrous score in Baden-Wuerttemberg, where they won just 5.5% of the vote, barely scraping over the threshold to enter parliament.
The SPD has ruled Rhineland-Palatinate for 35 years and losing control of it is likely to deepen the air of crisis that has overshadowed the party since the collapse of the former SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz's governing coalition in Berlin in 2024.
SPD Secretary-General Tim Kluessendorf told ARD the forecast result was a "bitter setback".
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), now clearly established as Germany's second-strongest party at the national level, was set to take 20% of the vote, in line with the result they scored in Baden-Wuerttemberg.
Rhineland-Palatinate, one of Germany's main wine-growing regions and home to chemicals giant BASF as well as a host of smaller Mittelstand companies, has been hit by Germany's economic stagnation in recent years and would be vulnerable to energy disruptions resulting from the war in Iran.
Depending on the final outcome, the CDU and the SPD may form a coalition at state level on the lines of the coalition in Berlin, with CDU candidate Gordon Schnieder on course to replace the sitting SPD premier, Alexander Schweitzer.
The Rhineland-Palatinate election was the second of five state elections this year, ahead of closely watched races in September in Berlin and the eastern states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saxony-Anhalt, where the far-right AfD is hoping to win its first major election.
(Reporting by James Mackenzie and Friederike Heine; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
