Since 2016, the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany has been governed by the environmentalist Greens and the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU). A few days before the election, polls show those two parties running neck and neck. The current head of government, Premier Winfried Kretschmann of the Greens, will turn 78 in May and is not running for re-election.

With the March 8 vote looming, the CDU has a slight lead in the polls. But with the environmentalist Green Party close behind, the race is still anyone's to win.

Should the CDU win the election, this would represent a return to tradition for this economically powerful state and its approximately 11 million residents. From the early 1950s, Baden-Württemberg was governed by the CDU. That is, until 2011, when Winfried Kretschmann ended that political legacy.

The state is considered structurally conservative, but has always been a stronghold of the Greens, who were and remain strong not only in cities such as Stuttgart and Tübingen with its renowned university, but also in rural areas.

Baden-Württemberg is one of Europe's strongest and most competitive regions economically. Unemployment is low, and the state is famous for its car manufacturers, such as Mercedes-Benz and Porsche. It is also known for its many successful family-owned companies. Of the 1,000 largest in Germany, 190 are located in Baden-Württemberg. What's more, the state borders France to the west and Switzerland to the south.

Özdemir more popular than Hagel

The Green Party's leading candidate is Cem Özdemir, who is well known nationwide as the former federal agriculture minister and former Green party leader. After a long period of trailing far behind the CDU, Özdemir has made up a lot of ground in the run-up to the election. He is far more popular than the CDU's candidate, Manuel Hagel, and won one of his party's few direct mandates for the Bundestag in the 2021 federal election in the state capital of Stuttgart.

Roberto Heinrich, an election researcher at the opinion polling institute infratest-dimap, which conducts surveys for public broadcaster ARD, says of the Green Party's leading candidate: "Özdemir enjoys support in the state beyond the Green Party's core voters, appealing both to the older generations and even to some CDU voters."

CDU candidate Hagel, meanwhile, has come under fire for sexist comments. A video interview he gave eight years ago was shared by a Green Party politician and has since gone viral. In it, Hagel spoke about visiting a school to speak to 15- and 16-year-old students, of whom the vast majority were girls.

"For a 29-year-old member of parliament, there are worse engagements than this," he said and continued by describing the first student to ask a question: "I'll never forget her, her name was Eva, brown hair, fawn-brown eyes." Hagel has since said that his comments were "rubbish."

More recently, he has been attacking the far right for its economic policies.

Difficult times for the Social Democrats

Meanwhile, the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) is leading a marginal existence in the southwest of the country. A result of less than ten percent of the vote would be a disaster for the SPD and could also dampen the mood in the federal government thousands of miles away in Berlin, where the SPD governs alongside the conservatives under Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

According to election researcher Roberto Heinrich, "the duel between the Greens and the CDU for control of the state, which has been going on since the 2010s, has pushed the SPD further to the margins. For a decade now, the SPD has also been facing competition from the right, which has also been addressing social and economic issues and thus social democratic topics."

He is referring to the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which is partly right-wing extremist.

The AfD is performing strongly in the polls at around 20%. Its leading candidate, Markus Frohnmaier, is one of the better-known members of the party in Berlin. He is the deputy leader of the parliamentary group in the Bundestag and has already announced that he does not intend to enter the state parliament. But his chances of becoming premier are pretty much zero. CDU frontrunner Hagel has made it clear that he has no intention of cooperating with the AfD, and that goes without saying for Özdemir of the Greens.

Roberto Heinrich says that the AfD now enjoys support from very different segments of the population: "At the same time, it is striking that voter support is particularly strong among middle-aged men, workers and people who are dissatisfied with their economic situation."

New electoral law

Those going to vote this upcoming Sunday will be the first to cast their ballots following new electoral reforms. Much like in the federal elections, voters will now be able to cast two votes instead of just one: one for a specific candidate in one of the 70 constituencies, and another for a party, which will determine the percentage distribution of seats in the new state parliament. And for the first time, all citizens aged 16 and over will be eligible to vote, rather than 18 as was previously the case.

This article was originally written in German.

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