According to projections, the CDU and its top candidate, the incumbent Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst, have clearly won the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia.

According to Infratest dimap, the Christian Democrats come to 35.5 percent, with a clear gap to the second-placed SPD.

With top candidate Thomas Kutschaty, the Social Democrats achieve 27.3 percent, it is their worst result in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Tatyana Heid

Deputy Editor-in-Chief for News and Politics Online.

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The Greens, led by Mona Neubaur, were able to almost triple their 2017 result with 18.3 percent according to Infatest dimap.

“We achieved the historically best state election result.

No government can be formed past us," said Neubaur in the ARD election studio.

The result obliges the Greens to enter into negotiations to form a government.

She left open which coalition partner she would prefer. 

A black-yellow coalition has governed North Rhine-Westphalia for the past five years; a red-green coalition was in power until 2017.

It is no longer enough for the government alliance of FDP and CDU to continue.

In addition to a grand coalition of CDU and SPD, according to the forecasts, an alliance of CDU and Greens should have the necessary majority, and a traffic light alliance would also be possible.

After it looked at the beginning of the evening as if the FDP could miss the five percent hurdle, according to projections it will now reach 5.3 to 5.5 percent and should thus move into the state parliament.

"It's a bitter defeat for us today - there's nothing to discuss," said top candidate Joachim Stamp.

"We will deal with it relentlessly." Party leader Christian Lindner also said: "Of course we would have liked the Free Democrats to benefit from the fact that we helped shape politics in North Rhine-Westphalia for five years.

We have to record a disastrous defeat.”

The AfD recorded slight losses compared to 2017, but will be represented in the next state parliament.

They see the projections at 5.6 percent.

becomes the AfD, which started with Markus Wagner.

According to projections, it comes to 5.6.

Tino Chrupalla, federal chairman of the AfD, said in the ARD election studio: "We need an initiative in the West in order to achieve double-digit results in the old states." The AfD had addressed the right issues, but it was difficult to mobilize voters.  

We, the left, are not represented in the state parliament.

She missed entry into the Düsseldorf state parliament with the sociologist Carolin Butterwegge and party leader Jules El-Khatib – for the third time in a row.

"This is a very disappointing result tonight, a very bitter result," said party leader Janine Wissler.

Her party is not irrelevant.

"There are polls according to which a left-wing party in Germany has or has a potential of 19 to 20 percent and the question is how can we achieve this potential again."

Black-green, traffic light or red-green?

In the evening, Wüst has already asserted his claim to government, he spoke of a “clear order”.

“People have made us the strongest force.

That is the task of forming and leading a future government," he said in Düsseldorf.

The deputy federal chairman of the CDU and education minister in Schleswig-Holstein, Karin Prien, also said: "The CDU is clearly the strongest force, which clearly goes hand in hand with a government mandate for the CDU.

We won together, we are out of the valley of tears together.” CDU party leader Friedrich Merz tweeted: “The CDU is back, our forward-looking course has been confirmed.”

But the SPD still has hopes of a government it will lead.

"When we have the result, we will talk among the democratic parties about which government coalition is feasible and conceivable," says top candidate Kuchaty.

Kevin Kühnert, Secretary General of the SPD, also said in the ARD election studio: “Of course, the runner-up can also negotiate the formation of a government.

Especially when the voters have made it so clear that the previous state government is no longer wanted, as they did with the black-yellow coalition.”

Around 13 million voters were asked to cast their votes in Germany's most populous federal state.

Voter turnout has fallen significantly compared to 2017: from 65.2 to 56 percent.