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Anti-immigrant party makes gains in German elections

BERLIN — An upstart far-right party campaigning on an anti-immigrant platform made strong gains in regional balloting across Germany on Sunday, while Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives suffered losses in two western states, initial projections showed.

The vote was widely viewed as a test of Merkel’s welcoming policy toward refugees.

If the chancellor’s center-right party fails to oust sitting governors in the western states of Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, that could weaken her days before she heads to Brussels to complete a deal with Turkey to stop the flow of migrants into Europe.

Final results were not expected until early Monday, but initial projections based on exit polls for the public broadcaster ARD indicated that the chancellor’s Christian Democrats would not garner enough votes to take control of either of the western states.

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Although Merkel’s party appeared poised to emerge as the strongest force in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, it may prove difficult for the party to form a government there, given the strong showing of the far-right party Alternative for Germany.

That party appeared likely to emerge as the second-place winner, capturing more than 20 percent of the vote after galvanizing voters through its campaign to protect Germany’s national identity as the number of migrants increases.

The chancellor has continued to insist that history will bear out the wisdom of her decision to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees at a time when Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is struggling to find enough skilled workers to fill jobs.

Voter turnout was high among the 12.7 million Germans eligible to vote Sunday. They account for about a fifth of the country’s overall electorate, but the balloting was the largest to take place before the next general election, in 2017.

Heading into the vote, experts predicted that the outcome would indicate the direction the country was going and serve as an evaluation of the chancellor’s policies.

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Alternative for Germany was founded as a protest party in 2013 in response to disillusionment with traditional parties’ handling of the sovereign debt crisis. It has since transformed into an anti-immigrant party.

If it does secure second place in the state Legislature, it will make forming a coalition a challenge for the Christian Democrats, given expected losses by their current partners, the Social Democrats.

The projections also showed the Alternative for Germany winning enough support to enter into the legislatures of both of the western states, a development that raises its presence at the regional level to representation in half of the country’s 16 states.