Germany’s Ruling SPD Fends Off AfD in Close State Election

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) has narrowly beaten the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) in a tight electoral race in the east German state of Brandenburg. The center-left SPD, which has governed Brandenburg since the fall of the Berlin Wall, won the election with 30.9 percent of the vote, while the AfD got 29.2 percent of the votes, according to provisional official results by the State Electoral Commissioner. Polling just before Brandenburg’s 2.1 million voters went to the ballot box showed both were neck and neck. The left-wing nationalist, populist, Eurosceptic, and socially conservative Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance party came third, winning 12 percent of the vote....