MAGDEBURG, Germany (AP) — The right-wing Alternative for Germany was projected to win a strong victory in a regional election Sunday, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether it would be able to fulfill its ambition of forming the country’s first right-wing state government since World War II.

The party’s 35-year-old charismatic candidate for governor of the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt hailed what he called a historic showing and said that Germany’s unpopular leader, Chancellor Friedrich Merz, had helped his campaign.