Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats lost the Berlin election on Sunday to the conservative Christian Democrats, failing to win the regional vote for the first time in nearly 25 years.

In the polls, the CDU was the strongest party with 27.5%, up from 18% in 2021. Support for the SPD dropped to 18.5% from 21%, its worst result ever, while the Greens were also on 18.5%, compared with 19%, the poll showed. This is the first time that the SPD has failed to come first in a Berlin regional election since 1999, when the CDU won with more than 40% of the vote.