By Thomas Escritt
BERLIN (Reuters) - Weeks after topping a state vote for the first time and nearly winning another, Germany's far-right is taking aim at Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD) in another regional election that could shape his political future.
Sunday's tight-looking vote in Brandenburg, the swampy lakeland round the capital Berlin, takes place in a region the SPD has ruled since reunification more than three decades ago.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD), with their nationalist demands for halts to immigration, windfarm construction and arming Ukraine, has a narrow roughly three-point lead in polls with nearly 30% of voting intentions.
The SPD has been battered by the federal government's unpopularity amid high inflation, the Ukraine war impact and high migrant influxes, but it has closed the gap recently in Brandenburg polling.
"Brandenburg is historically an SPD stronghold," said Philipp Thomeczek, politics professor at Potsdam University. "If they don't win here that would be a massive break."
Coming a year ahead of a national election, the vote could trigger a party backlash against Scholz or, if the SPD holds the state, confirm him as their candidate for 2025.
His conservative opponents are far ahead with their bloc commanding around a third of the vote in most nationwide polls, while the SPD and AfD vie for a distant second.
The conservatives this week settled on their chancellor candidate for next year: Friedrich Merz, a sharp-tongued arch-conservative. But Scholz and many Social Democrats believe the gaffe-prone Merz's low personal popularity gives them a chance.
Though none will yet say it openly, some in Scholz's party believe he should follow his idol Joe Biden and step aside for a more charismatic champion like defence minister Boris Pistorius.
But a win in Scholz's home state - his constituency is in the state capital Potsdam and his wife is a Brandenburg minister - may quell the murmurs against him.
The party has made barely any mention of Scholz in the campaign, relying instead on the popularity of state premier Dietmar Woidke, a trained food chemist. He said that if the AfD wins most votes he would step aside and not even offer himself as a candidate to lead any potential coalition.
"The aim is to stop the AfD from winning," he said.
'MORDOR' WINDMILLS
Unable to form a coalition despite winning most votes in Thuringia state earlier this month, the AfD has almost no chance of forming a regional or federal government given every other party refuses to work with a movement security services class as extremist. The AfD has faced - and denies - accusations of racism and of harbouring agents for China and Russia.
Brandenburg presents a mixed economic picture: it is home to Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)'s first factory in Europe and has wealthy parts within the Berlin commuter belt. But some of its outlying villages and farmscapes have been shrinking for decades.
As well as concern over Ukraine and migration, the AfD has channelled public anxiety over energy transition: its state head Hans-Christoph Berndt likened windfarms to "unbearable horror landscapes like Mordor", the fictional land of evil.
He provoked mockery - but also some approval - when in one debate he reinterpreted religious doctrine to say: "As a Catholic I think loving your neighbour means looking out for your own countrymen."
Should the SPD founder on Sunday, that could open the way for Merz's Christian Democrats to form a coalition in Brandenburg, perhaps with the backing of a new party, the socially conservative, economically left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, and others.
Unseating the SPD in its stronghold would be a boost for Merz, fresh from his anointment, and could tip an already restive SPD into open revolt against the chancellor.