In Germany, Scholz’s Party Ekes Out Win Over Far Right

The embattled center-left party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany scored a hard-fought and narrow victory over the far-right ethnonationalist party, Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD, in an election in an eastern state of the country, potentially energizing Mr. Scholz’s government in Berlin.

Although they do not affect the government in Berlin directly, state elections in Germany are often seen as a reflection of the national mood and a snapshot of the government’s popularity. Sunday’s election, in the state of Brandenburg, is the third and final election in a state that was once part of East Germany before the country votes for a new chancellor and federal government in a year.

Mr. Scholz’s party, the Social Democrats, won 31 percent of the vote, and the AfD got just above 29 percent, according to official preliminary results. Nearly 45 percent of voters chose extremist parties, and the election had the highest voter turnout in the state, 73 percent, since reunification.

The surprise win for the Social Democrats was as much the result of the popular governor’s intense campaigning as it was because of strategic voting against the AfD, according to exit polls.

“Our goal from the outset was to prevent our state from being stamped with a big brown stamp,” said Dietmar Woidke, the governor, on Sunday night, referring to the far right.

Earlier this month, two other eastern states, Saxony and Thuringia, held their elections, and extremist parties dominated. The AfD, some chapters of which have been labeled extremist by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, won around 30 percent in all three states; in Brandenburg, the Social Democrats still edged out the AfD. In Thuringia, the AfD got 32.8 percent, taking the plurality of the vote, the first time a far-right party won the plurality in a German state since World War II.