Major German state holds election as difficult winter looms

BERLIN (AP) — A major German state is voting in an election that Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left party hopes will bring some relief from poor recent nationwide poll showings as the country faces high inflation and worries about energy supplies this winter. Around 6.1 million voters were eligible to elect the state legislature in Lower Saxony, which occupies a large swath of northwestern Germany. Recent polls there have shown Scholz’s Social Democrats a few points ahead of the center-right Christian Democrats, the main opposition party at the national level. They also expect gains on Sunday both for the environmentalist Greens, the second-biggest party in Germany’s national government, and for the far-right Alternative for Germany, amid worries about energy and high inflation.