Following the state elections in Baden-Württemberg , the mood at the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), Germany's oldest political party, oscillates between utter shock and a sense of helplessness. With 5.5% of the vote, the SPD just managed to cross the 5% threshold for representation in parliament. This has been its worst result in post-war history. The SPD has achieved single-digit results in four other federal states since 2021. At the federal level, too, success has been elusive: For a