Chancellor Angela Merkel's party suffered losses in German regional elections on Sunday, a setback that could hurt her chances of forming the center-right government she wants after next month's federal vote, Reuters reported.
Merkel's conservatives hold a comfortable 12-15 point lead in national polls over their main rivals, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), and a weekend opinion survey showed 87 percent of Germans expect her to win a second term on September 27.
But her Christian Democrats (CDU) saw their support fall sharply in the final weeks of the 2002 and 2005 campaigns and the regional results on Sunday may increase fears of another pre-election slump.
In the state of Saarland, on the French border, and in Thuringia, in the ex-communist east, CDU leaders who have ruled for a decade saw their support slump by more than 10 points compared to 2004 and both could be unseated by leftist coalitions.
"The Social Democrats now have the aura of a winner, something they will need for the coming weeks," said Karl-Rudolf Korte, a political scientist at Duisburg-Essen University. "It could mean a turning point in the election campaign."
The regional election results from three German states were not all negative for Merkel.
In a third vote in the eastern state of Saxony, her CDU looked poised to retain power, most likely in a coalition with the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) -- the same party she hopes to partner with after the federal vote.
Gains for the FDP in all three states were a silver lining for the conservatives and the lack of strong rises in support for the SPD will be a comfort.
But the risks Merkel faces in the final four weeks of the campaign have clearly risen.