Angela Merkel's bid for fourth term boosted by local election result

Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) easily defeated the ruling Social Democrats (SPD) in state elections in Schleswig-Holstein on Sunday, exit polls and early returns broadcast by public service TV stations show.

Voters in the small, northern state of Schleswig-Holstein on the Baltic Sea handed her CDU party 33.3 percent, while the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) clinched 26.5 percent, latest results showed.

The Social Democrats (SPD) - which was governing the state in a coalition with the Greens and SSW, a regional party that represents the Danish and Frisian minorities - won just 27.2 percent of the vote.

Beyond its significance as the last-but-one regional election before the September general elections, there were plenty of local peculiarities in Sunday's vote.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party on Sunday secured a victory in Schleswig-Holstein state, according to forecasts made by the local broadcaster ZDF.

The SPD's prospects of toppling Merkel will be boosted further if they can hold onto power next Sunday in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), a large western region where elections in the past have served as an indicator of the national mood.

The challenge from Martin Schulz, the former European parliament president and Brexit opponent, appeared to falter as his Social Democrat party (SPD) suffered heavy losses. Merkel's support within her party remained at 90 percent.

In March, voters in Saarland, Germany's smallest state, returned Merkel's center-right party to power with 40.7 percent of the vote.

Polls point to a tight race with Ms. Merkel's Christian Democrats.

"Nobody will argue that the Christian Democrats are the clear winners tonight", said Daniel Gunther, the party's top candidate in Schleswig-Holstein, who will now face the task of forming a new government.

Current polls suggest that the SPD may be able to improve on their result from five years ago and maintain power in the state.

The left-wing populist party the Left fell short of the 5 percent hurdle to enter into the parliament with 3.8 percent of votes, despite an increase of 1.5 percent compared to 2012.

As the opposition rides high, playing the law and order card, SPD-Green support has been squeezed by a resurgent liberal Free Democrats (FPD), and the rising far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AFD).

On the 7 May, the medium-sized state of Schleswig-Holstein will go to the polls.

Schulz has an uphill battle ahead to defeat Merkel, a leader so popular that one CDU election poster in 2013 simply showed her fingers clasped in their habitual diamond shape alongside the slogan "Germany's Future In Good Hands".

"In both cases, it will be important for the Social Democrats to get a result that allows them to say that, despite a certain calming of the Schulz hype, this upswing still exists and there is still enough mobilization to take this effect into the national election", said Gero Neugebauer, a political scientist at Berlin's Free University.

Schulz said SPD leaders were "this morning.in a hard situation".