BERLIN — Germany’s Greens are set to make major gains while the long-suffering Social Democrats are on course for a comfortable victory in a local vote in the city-state of Hamburg Sunday, according to preliminary results.
The center-left SPD, which has seen its support decline in recent elections on both the state and federal level, secured 39 percent of the vote in Hamburg — clearly ahead of the Greens on 24.2 percent but 6.6 percentage points down on its last result in 2015. If confirmed in the final results, this would mark the second-best election results ever for the Greens.
Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union came in a distant third with 11.2 percent, followed by the leftist Die Linke party at 9.1 percent.
Both the far-right Alternative for Germany party and the liberal FDP party were roughly at the 5 percent threshold to stay in the local parliament, meaning a small decrease in the final results could see either one knocked out of the assembly. Electoral authorities in Hamburg will validate the final results at 8 a.m. local time on Monday.
Nearly all parties lost support or stayed roughly the same compared to the last election, except for the Greens, which are set to gain around 11.9 percentage points.
In the 2015 vote, the SPD won 45.6 percent of the vote, allowing them to govern in coalition with the Greens, who had secured 12.3 percent. The two parties are likely to resume that partnership after Sunday’s election in the affluent port city.