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Top candidates in North Rhine-Westphalia: Thomas Kutschaty (SPD) and Hendrik Wüst (CDU)
Photo: Oliver Berg / dpa
According to initial forecasts, Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst's party will achieve 35 percent, a slight gain compared to 2017.
The Christian Democrats are clearly ahead of the SPD with top candidate Thomas Kutschaty (27.5 percent, minus 3.7 points).
The Greens can look forward to massive gains in votes and have tripled their share compared to 2017 to 18.5 percent.
In contrast, the FDP has to accept significant losses and only comes to 5 percent.
According to the forecasts, the AfD is still represented in the state parliament (6 percent) despite slight losses, and the left missed out on entering parliament, as it did in 2017.
It is a historically poor result for the SPD.
Since 1947, the Social Democrats in North Rhine-Westphalia had always received more than 30 percent.
The SPD thus undercut the previous negative mark of 31.2 percent in the 2017 election.
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