Rhineland‑Palatinate, in Germany’s southwest, is a region of outsized significance: it hosts Ramstein, the largest US air base outside the United States; is the ancestral home of former US president Donald Trump; features the world’s tallest cold‑water geyser; and produces nearly three quarters of Germany’s wine from the Rhine, Moselle, Nahe and Ahr valleys. Mainz, the state capital, even has Germany’s only ministry explicitly for viticulture, a post held by the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) in the current coalition.
Since 2016 the state has been governed by a traffic‑light coalition of the Social Democrats (SPD), the FDP and the Greens — the last of that color combination in Germany. The SPD has led Rhineland‑Palatinate for 35 years and the state is also associated with former chancellor Helmut Kohl of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). That long incumbency makes the March 22 state election a focal point for both regional and national politics.
A final poll by infratest dimap, published ten days before the vote, showed a razor‑thin race: CDU 29% and SPD 28%, after months in which the CDU’s lead steadily narrowed. The FDP faces the real prospect of falling under the 5% threshold needed for seats in the state parliament, putting the viticulture ministry at risk. The Greens are polling around 8% and are expected to suffer modest losses. The Left party sits close to 5%, giving it a chance of entering the parliament for the first time in the state. On the right, the far‑right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is polling at about 19%, roughly double its 2021 share.
Because most other parties refuse to cooperate with the AfD, a renewed coalition excluding it would probably be a grand coalition of SPD and CDU. The central question is which party will head that government if a grand coalition is needed.
The top candidates are incumbent Alexander Schweitzer for the SPD and challenger Gordon Schnieder for the CDU. Both are in their early 50s, fathers of three, comparatively informal on the campaign trail and unusually tall — Schnieder roughly 1.94 m, Schweitzer about 2.06 m. Their campaign has been low on personal attacks and higher on civility; personality may be decisive. In a direct, hypothetical head‑to‑head test Schweitzer led 41% to Schnieder’s 23%, a gap that could influence who emerges as the dominant force.
This vote is the second of five state elections in Germany’s 2026 “super election year,” and Berlin is watching it as a barometer for national fortunes. The first contest, in Baden‑Württemberg, produced the SPD’s worst post‑war result at 5.5% and post‑vote analysis suggested voter disappointment with the federal government’s performance. The SPD and CDU both urgently need a positive outcome in Rhineland‑Palatinate: their federal coalition has been in office for about ten months and approval ratings have already slipped.
A loss for the SPD after three and a half decades in power could fuel calls within the party for a shift to the left and raise questions about the stability of the federal coalition. A setback for the CDU would echo the humiliation in Baden‑Württemberg and intensify debate over the party’s direction under leader Friedrich Merz, who has pushed for a more conservative stance and a firmer posture toward the SPD. A leftward move by the SPD would make cooperation between the two larger parties more difficult.
The race remains finely balanced: infratest dimap found some 12% of eligible voters saying they could still change their preference before election day.
This article was originally written in German. DW publishes a weekly newsletter, Berlin Briefing, with a roundup of German politics and society.