Germans in the state of Brandenburg were voting in a regional election on Sunday with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) expected to finish first, building on successes in other eastern states and beating Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats in one of their traditional strongholds.

AfD calls its performance in Brandenburg ‘huge success’ but Social Democratic party projected to take the lead. Summary of the evening 20:08 Germany’s Social Democratic party (SPD) appears to have narrowly won an election in the state of Brandenburg,

Brandenburg is a longstanding stronghold for the party. But it is located in Germany’s relatively impoverished east, where the anti-immigrant A f D performs far better than in the west. That made this election a test of whether the SPD could beat the populists on its home ground.