(Bloomberg) -- Germany's far-right AfD has become the most popular party in Saxony in another setback to Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, a poll showed on Thursday.
The euroskeptic AfD garnered 25% in the Insa poll published by Bild newspaper, up from the 9.7% it obtained in the last election there in 2014. Merkel's CDU lost 15.4 percentage points to 24% in the same comparison.
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It is the second of three states that hold regional elections this fall in which the AfD has taken a lead. Brandenburg is the other. If confirmed in the elections, the result would be particularly damaging for CDU chief Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer who had veered the party to the right in an effort to win back votes from the AfD, the German acronym for Alternative for Germany.
The party that was founded only in 2013 has drawn much of its support in former East German states, where unemployment is higher, incomes are lower and objection to refugees has been particularly strong.
The Insa survey polled 1057 people June 4-11 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
To contact the reporter on this story: Raymond Colitt in Berlin at rcolitt@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at bsills@bloomberg.net, Richard Bravo
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