“German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is trying to convince leaders from his conservative party to stick with him at a Monday morning meeting after his Christian Democratic Union suffered its worst-ever result in a state election,” Bloomberg reports.“Merz has vowed to stay on as chancellor even though the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, won the state election in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania with 38.2%, while his CDU got just 4.9%. This marks the first time in Germany’s post-World War II history that the CDU has fallen out of a regional parliament, missing the 5% threshold.”Said Merz: “We can’t sugarcoat it, it was a disaster.”Financial Times: Germany’s Merz vows to stay despite “disaster.”