Anti-immigrant populists beat Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats to second place in an election in the east German state of Thuringia yesterday, building spectacularly on their steady momentum since first entering the Bundestag two years ago.

According to exit polls, the Alternative für Deutschland or AfD took nearly 24 per cent of the vote, beating the centre-right CDU by one percentage point but, as expected, failing to oust incumbent leftwingers Die Linke. The AfD more than doubled its share of the vote. Despite that, it has no chance of entering power yet, as other parties have ruled out joining it in a coalition.