The Alternative for Germany (AfD) emerged as the largest party in Sunday’s Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election, according to an ARD exit poll, narrowly beating the governing Social Democratic Party (SPD).

The AfD was projected to receive 37% of the vote, compared with 35.5% for the SPD. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) fell to 5.5%, its lowest result in a German state election since 1949. The figures remain based on an exit poll and could change as votes are counted.

The result represents another setback for Merz just two weeks after the AfD secured a major victory in Saxony-Anhalt, where it more than doubled its previous support but did not win enough seats to govern independently.

Merz described the CDU's performance in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on Sunday as a "disaster," attributing the outcome to the intense competition between the SPD and AfD.

"We cannot talk up the result in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern; it is a disaster. The CDU has fought, but it is at the end been crushed by the polarization between the SPD and the AfD," the Chancellor said.

Despite the defeat, Merz said he intended to continue pursuing his government's reform program.

"I want to bring our country forward. I am firmly convinced that the success of our reforms will not only improve our coexistence, but also our self-image and our image in the world. Germany is reform-capable. What needs to be done now requires backbone, steadfastness, and patience."

The AfD's rise has remained particularly contentious in Germany because of the country's history under Nazi rule and the Holocaust. The party, founded in 2013, has repeatedly faced criticism over statements by senior figures concerning that history.

In 2017, AfD politician Björn Höcke was widely condemned after calling for a change in Germany's approach to remembering its Nazi past. The following year, then-AfD chairman Alexander Gauland described the Nazi period as a "speck of bird poo in over 1,000 years of successful German history".

More recently, AfD leader in Saxony-Anhalt Ulrich Siegmund was featured on the cover of Der Spiegel under the description "the most dangerous man in Germany." The magazine defended the characterization, while Siegmund embraced the attention.

(Arutz Sheva-Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Yom Kippur in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)