Three regional elections have radically changed Germany’s political landscape

[Denzil_DC]

10. Another Nostradamus

A lot of the coverage I've managed to find is a rehash of the Reuters report with some additions. That's the way we do journalism nowadays, especially international journalism.

If you read down into the body of some of the more thoughtful articles, the "drubbing" and "humiliation for Merkel" headlines are given a little more context.

The Guardian:

Anti-refugee AfD party makes big gains in German state elections

...

If the AfD’s strong showing reflected deep hostility to Merkel’s plan, however, other results last night told a different story. The CDU’s poor showings will not necessarily be seen as a substantial blow to the chancellor’s leadership partly because, during the campaign, CDU candidates in all three states had distanced themselves to varying degrees from their leader’s strategy for the refugee crisis. The politician who won in Baden-Württemberg’s, Green state premier Winfried Kretschmann, had passionately defended the German chancellor’s open-borders stance, stating in one day that he was “praying every day” for her wellbeing.

With a centrist, pro-business party programme that defied orthodox ideas of what an environmental party should stand for, the Green party in Germany’s northwest managed to come top with 30.5% in a state. Remarkably, 30% of voters who had switched from Christian Democrat to Green in the state said they had done so because of the refugee debate.

...

In Rhineland-Palatinate, the incumbent Social Democrat state premier defeated Christian Democrat, Julia Klöckner, who had until today been seen as a potential successor to Merkel. Klockner had seemingly been cruising towards a victory in the state but appeared to fall out of favour after calling for an alternative plan to her party leader’s management of the refugee crisis.

According to Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper, the chances of the German chancellor’s authority being called into question by bad results for her party were “unlikely, but not out of the question”. While Merkel will now face a renewed debate inside her party over the electoral cost of her refugee policy, she is also now able to show that questioning her course comes at a political cost. “Things won’t get really dangerous for Merkel”, Spiegel wrote.

Merkel’s personality ratings have risen again after hitting a low at the start of the year. In a Forsa poll published last week, the chancellor enjoyed an approval rate of 50%, her highest this year.

The Wall Street Journal:

German Voters Punish Angela Merkel Over Migrant Policy in State Elections
...

But the results laid bare the extent to which the migration crisis has polarized German society. Left-of-center proponents of a welcoming refugee policy also recorded wins Sunday, even as Ms. Merkel’s conservatives suffered. Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union lost two close races, falling to the center-left Greens in Baden-Württemberg and the center-left Social Democrats in Rhineland-Palatinate.

In the traditionally conservative state of Baden-Württemberg, one of Germany’s economic powerhouses, the refugee-friendly Greens surged to first place behind their popular incumbent premier, Winfried Kretschmann. Ms. Merkel’s CDU failed to win first place in the southwestern state for the first time since World War II. The AfD, meanwhile, won 15%—the best postwar result for a populist or far-right party in the state.

In Rhineland-Palatinate, the other western state, incumbent state Premier Malu Dreyer of the Social Democrats beat a rising star in the CDU, Julia Klöckner. In the campaign, Ms. Klöckner took a tougher line on migrants than Ms. Dreyer did.

In Saxony-Anhalt, which suffers from one of Germany’s highest unemployment rates, the AfD’s capture of 24% of the vote was poised to upend typical political alliances. While Ms. Merkel’s CDU came in first, the results suggested that the party would need to ally with both the center-left Social Democrats and the Greens to form a government.

...

Despite Sunday’s setbacks, Ms. Merkel remains in a relatively strong position at home. Her approval rating stands at 54%, according to pollster Infratest Dimap—a decline from 67% last summer but still high compared with the leaders of many other European democracies. Nationwide, the CDU is the most popular party, polling at 36%, compared with 23% for the left-of-center Social Democrats, the junior partner in Ms. Merkel’s governing coalition. In Sunday’s exit polls, a majority of voters in Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate said Ms. Merkel was doing a good job handling migration.

I'm not a great fan of Merkel for other reasons, and think her immigration moves were too much too soon, though I'm broadly sympathetic. But the widespread hype around these results has been unbelievable.