Germany’s far right looks to have claimed its biggest electoral success since World War II, winning a regional vote in the country’s East on Sunday, according to an initial projection.

Triumph for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), in a region that was under communist control during the Cold War, is a huge blow for Germany’s political center — not least for the three parties in the coalition of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, which appear to have suffered significant losses.

The AfD came in first in the state of Thuringia with about 31 percent of the vote, according to the early projection — an outcome that, if realized, will prompt much soul-searching as to how the center failed to stop the far right’s electoral re-emergence, despite the AfD’s growing extremism.

“For us, it’s a historic success,” said Alice Weidel, one of the AfD’s national leaders.