The Drudge headline from Sunday night was “Crushing Defeat,” which it certainly was for the Christian Democrats in North Rhine-Westphalia’s state election. In the span of two years, the CDU plummeted from 34.6 percent of the vote to 26.3 percent within the state. The CDU’s gubernatorial candidate and environmental minister Norbert Röttgen resigned from office just today. The Social Democrats, meanwhile, increased support from 34.5 percent to 39.1 percent. Combined with the Green party’s 11.3 percent, the SPD-Green coalition will be running Germany’s most populous state with a solid majority. And yet Angela Merkel herself will most likely remain unthreatened in next year’s national elections.