Reactions to the NRW election: how the parties interpret the result

The clear victory in NRW strengthens party leader Merz – this is the message sent by the CDU. Despite the defeat, the SPD hopes that the Greens do not want to make a decision yet, and the FDP calls their result “disastrous”. How the parties assess the outcome of the election.

Tailwind for Merz

The clear victory in NRW strengthens CDU party leader Friedrich Merz, who even wanted to see a comeback after the disastrous federal election: “The CDU is back,” he wrote on Twitter and sees his course “also confirmed at the federal level”. In his home state of North Rhine-Westphalia, he had put in a lot of effort during the election campaign and set himself clearly apart from the traffic light coalition. The CDU hopes that Merz has stabilized with the success of Hendrik Wüst.

Secretary General Mario Czaja put it this way in the “Berliner Runde”: “He is the strong man of the Union, without a doubt.” The possible calculus: the stronger Merz, the quieter the debates about possible “heirs to the throne” such as Wüst or Daniel Günther. The CDU is happy that it has strong prime ministers “and thus a wide range of personalities who can take responsibility”.

At the same time, Czaja attributed the “strong joint performance” of the CDU to the leadership of Merz. He brought the CDU team together, helped a lot in the election campaign, united the Union and brought the wings together.

SPD: Lost – but still hopeful

The Social Democrats in NRW have never performed weaker than in this election. However, the party leadership does not want to speak of a clear defeat. Even if you didn’t become the strongest force – black and yellow is history. Both party leader Lars Klingbeil and Secretary General Kevin Kühnert spread this reading.

In the “Berliner Runde” Kühnert again referred to several historical examples in which the runners-up ended up being the head of government. “If there is a possibility of forming a government led by the SPD, then we will of course offer talks to the other parties,” said Kühnert.

If there is a possibility of forming an SPD-led government, “then we as the SPD offer to seize this opportunity,” said Klingbeil. Armin Laschet, then candidate for Chancellor of the Union, made a similar statement after the federal election and was sharply criticized for it by the SPD.

Health Minister Karl Lauterbach rejected speculation about a possible SPD prime minister: “I think it’s presumptuous and inappropriate that we’re speculating about where we’re going to come into play,” he said. “We lost this election, the Union and the Greens won, they have to conduct the talks first – everything else comes afterwards.” But maybe it would also be enough for a traffic light or red-green in NRW: “But this is not the moment when we are speculating about what kind of government we are going to form.”

Greens become the “kingmaker”

After their historically best result in NRW, the Greens are happy about a new position of power and can choose with whom they want to govern. Political director Emily Büning announced talks to explore “in which coalition we can push through the most green content”. You can imagine that “both with the CDU and the SPD”.

The Federal Green Party leader, Ricarda Lang, sees the success in North Rhine-Westphalia as a sign “that we have up-to-date answers”. An allusion to the Green Federal Ministers Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck, who are omnipresent in the Ukraine crisis. Their work helped her a lot in the NRW election campaign, said the Greens’ top candidate in NRW, Mona Neubaur. It’s about “having attitude and a compass in times of crisis”, “communicating honestly” and “nevertheless finding pragmatic ways”.

“Horrible evening” for the FDP

For the FDP, the NRW election is the third defeat in a state election in a row: the Liberals failed in the Saar election, in Schleswig-Holstein, as in North Rhine-Westphalia, they halved their result from the last election. FDP leader and Finance Minister Christian Lindner spoke of a “disastrous” result. The FDP federal politician Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann experienced a “horrible evening”.

In the “Berliner Runde” General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai spoke of a “sad evening”. There is nothing nice to say. He did not want to see a connection to the Berlin government and instead referred to the country-specific circumstances.

Similarly, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff declared defeat. As in Schleswig-Holstein, there was a highly personalized election campaign between the top candidates, said the party’s parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag on ZDF.

AfD thinks about “Initiative West”.

The AfD had to accept losses again, but just managed to get into parliament in Düsseldorf. AfD federal leader Tino Chrupalla is on the defensive after a series of election defeats. The party needs “a major initiative after the party congress,” he said after the election. In the coming days, the AfD must talk about “the extent to which we need a West initiative,” said Chrupalla. The aim must be to achieve at least a double-digit result in the West.

Parliamentary secretary Bernd Baumann once again blamed the lack of reporting for the poor election result: “We were hushed up,” he said in the “Berliner Runde”.

Self-critical Left Party

The left is one of the losers again. The party, which is in a deep crisis, is not getting the curve in North Rhine-Westphalia either and fails again at the five percent hurdle. Federal manager Jörg Schindler commented self-critically on the defeat. His party had “done too many ambiguities”. Now the Left Party is paying off “what has accumulated with us”.