Overview

• Mülheim’s election office now reports CDU incumbent Marc Buchholz ahead by more than 100 votes, with the Wahlausschuss set to certify the corrected result on Thursday as the SPD weighs legal options.
• In Dortmund, CDU candidate Alexander Omar Kalouti defeated SPD mayor Thomas Westphal, ending nearly eight decades of Social Democratic leadership in the city.
• The SPD secured Cologne with Torsten Burmester and held key posts such as Duisburg and Gelsenkirchen, where AfD challengers were decisively beaten in runoffs.
• The Greens posted mixed outcomes, winning the Münster mayoralty for the first time but losing Bonn and Aachen and falling short in Cologne.
• AfD candidates failed to capture any of the three mayoralties they contested, several contests were decided by razor‑thin margins in places like Datteln and Siegen, and Chancellor Friedrich Merz cast the CDU’s showing as an instruction to deliver results.