Friedrich Merz and his party won, Elon Musk didn’t seem to move voters, and more lessons from an early German vote with big implications for Europe.

Conservative leader Friedrich Merz won a lackluster victory, while Chancellor Olaf Scholz conceded his center-left Social Democrat party’s worst postwar defeat.

Europe must seek to “achieve independence” from the United States, Germany’s likely next chancellor Friedrich Merz said after his opposition conservatives won elections on Sunday, in a vote that also saw surging support for the far-right.

Provisional results in Germany’s election confirm that mainstream conservatives led by Friedrich Merz won Germany's national election, while a far-right party surged to become the nation’s second-largest.

Germany’s economy is stalled and its politics fractured. But it sees an opening for a new chancellor to lead Europe’s response to a changing America.