A Repudiation of Merkel at Home

Earlier today elections were held in eastern Germany, elections similar to U.S. state elections. In Angela Merkel's home state - Mecklenburg-Vorpommern - the new Alternative for Germany (AfD) anti-immigrant party gained more votes than Merkel's CDU for the first time ever. See the report at Politico.eu, hat tip to RealClearWorld for the link.

This is viewed as a serious repudiation of Merkel and her wildly unpopular pro-immigrant policies. As expected the Social Democrats came in first, and will probably coalesce with anybody but AfD to control the state parliament.

Despite the fact that the state has taken in few refugees, polls suggested that the issue was formost in voters’ minds. The result made clear that voters primarily hold Merkel’s conservatives and not the Social Democrats responsible for refugee policies.

Exit polls showed that while most (of) the AfD’s voters did not vote in the last election, it also benefited from many defectors from the Christian Democrats.

The description of AfD voters sounds like many of our Trump voters, nein?