“AfD is no longer an eastern phenomenon, but has become a major all-German party,” Weidel said on Monday. “So we have arrived.” She added that the “disdain and contempt” for the AfD from the political establishment in Germany “won’t be tenable in the long run.”

Markus Soder, leader of the Christian Social Union – the dominant political force in Bavaria for decades – said the results of the vote should send an “alarm signal” through Berlin’s corridors of power. “The topic of migration is a purely federal issue, not a regional policy issue,” Soder said, adding that in order to respond to the AfD’s rise, Berlin must “change Germany’s migration policy.”