According to initial forecasts, the CDU won the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Accordingly, she was able to slightly improve her result from 2017 with her top candidate, the incumbent Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst.
The SPD, which started with Thomas Kutschaty, on the other hand undercut their worst result in NRW in 2017. The Greens, led by Mona Neubaur, were able to almost triple their 2017 result.
The FDP and its top candidate Joachim Stamp have to worry about getting back into the state parliament, the same applies to the AfD, which started with Markus Wagner.
With the sociologist Carolin Butterwegge and party leader Jules El-Khatib, the left missed entry into the Düsseldorf state parliament.
A black-yellow coalition has governed North Rhine-Westphalia for the past five years; a red-green coalition was in power until 2017.
In all likelihood, there will no longer be a majority for a continuation of the government alliance between the FDP and CDU.
In addition to a grand coalition of the CDU and SPD, according to the forecasts, an alliance of the CDU and the Greens should have the necessary majority.
Around 13 million voters were asked to cast their votes in Germany's most populous federal state.
The election is considered an important mood test for the traffic light parties in the federal government.
A few hours before the polls closed, turnout was slightly lower than five years ago.
By 4 p.m. it was 53.35 percent on average in eight selected districts and urban districts, as state returning officer Wolfgang Schellen announced on Sunday afternoon.
He rated this as “moderate voter turnout”.
In the 2017 state election, it was around 59 percent at that point, and in the end turnout was 65.2 percent.