On Sunday, voters in hundreds of cities, towns and villages across Germany’s most populous state will choose their next local officials.
Although the elections, in North Rhine-Westphalia, have no direct effect on national politics, many in Germany are watching them as a measure of the country’s mood. They are the first electoral test for the Christian Democratic Union party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz since he assumed office in May.
Since Mr. Merz won the national election in February, the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, has continued to surge in popularity, with polls showing that a quarter of voters back it.
The AfD, which Germany’s domestic intelligence service has designated an extremist party, is now neck and neck with Mr. Merz and his conservative alliance, which won 28.5 percent of the vote but whose support has fallen to 26 percent, according to polls.
The center-left Social Democrats, who are the junior partner in Mr. Merz’s government coalition, are faring even worse.
Here is what to know about the vote on Sunday.
How will national politics affect the vote?
Polls for the races in North Rhine-Westphalia either do not exist or are unreliable, so it will became clear only after ballots are counted on Sunday night whether Mr. Merz’s governing coalition in Berlin has hurt or helped the Christian Democratic Union in the state elections.
The party traditionally performs well in rural areas, small towns and villages. But support in these areas is mostly based on the records of local politicians, meaning that Mr. Merz’s policies, such as trying to curb migration, reboot the economy or rebuild the army, could be less important to voters.
For the Social Democrats, Sunday’s elections could hurt. Many of the regions’s blue-collar workers, the traditional base of the party, are expected to turn to the AfD, which has attracted them in other states. A major loss of support from its core voters in a former heartland would be a serious setback for the party.
How might the AfD fare?
This is the biggest question. Some analysts and politicians have raised the possibility of a far-right sweep in the industrial heartland of the state, where unemployment and dissatisfaction with federal politics are high.
While the AfD’s appeal has been growing across the country, the party has not been able to establish itself in any city government in what used to be West Germany. A victory would be major milestone.
“The AfD benefits from the weakness of the SPD,” said Andreas Blätte, a political scientist at the University Duisburg-Essen in the state, referring to the Social Democrats. Professor Blätte added that the AfD could win in traditionally working-class areas, and warned that even if their victories were isolated to just a few cities it would be a shock for the mainstream political parties.
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Why is there attention on Gelsenkirchen?
Gelsenkirchen, a city in North Rhine-Westphalia that used to be a center of heavy industry and coal mining, is one of the places where the AfD is expected to do well, analysts say, and the party could even win the mayoralty. During the national election, the AfD won 25 percent of the vote in the city, 7 percentage points more than the party scored across western Germany.
The city has high unemployment and poverty and a big immigrant community. Many voters there are fed up with the Social Democrats, which have been running Gelsenkirchen for the past 15 years.
“I could see, given the mood and the fact that people are ready to teach someone a lesson, that the AfD could do quite well,” said Jörg Pfnister, who runs a small wine bar at an outdoor market where locals meet every Wednesday evening.
Mr. Pfnister, who used to work at the nearby Opel car factory, said he saw the downtown dying out as people forgo the more expensive shopping there for discount or migrant-run supermarkets at city’s peripheries.
Norbert Emmerich, a financial adviser and a member of the City Council who is the AfD’s candidate for mayor, was guarded when asked about his chances. He said he expected between a quarter and a third of the vote, a long way from the 50 percent needed to win. However, given that there are nearly a dozen contenders for the mayor, many predict a runoff between the top two parties. A second round of voting would be held on Sept. 28.
Christopher F. Schuetze is a reporter for The Times based in Berlin, covering politics, society and culture in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
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