Seehofer’s party—a key source of votes for Merkel in federal elections—has a point to prove: beyond extending its 56 years in charge of Bavaria, polls show that it can hope to win back an absolute majority in the state legislature it humiliatingly lost five years ago.

Bavaria is in strong economic health—making it difficult for the opposition to generate momentum for change.

The southern German region of 12.5 million is a wealthy high-tech and industrial center, home to companies such as BMW, Siemens and Allianz. It has an unemployment rate of just 3.8 percent—the lowest of any German state, and well below the already-healthy national rate of 6.8 percent.

“Germans are doing better than people in most other countries on this Earth, and you’ll understand if we say that Germany is doing well and Bavaria is doing a little bit better,” Seehofer said recently.

As Merkel looks to a strong showing in Bavaria for support, her center-left challenger, Peer Steinbrueck, has been downplaying the vote’s significance, insisting that “the federal election isn’t being decided here.”

His Social Democrats fielded well-known Munich Mayor Christian Ude as their candidate for governor, but prospects look poor for his hopes of ousting the CSU in a several-party alliance and his personal ratings trail Seehofer’s badly.

Steinbrueck argues that people often vote differently in federal and state elections, and says the outcome “won’t change anything” in his party’s national election campaign.

Manfred Guellner, the head of the Forsa polling agency, also is skeptical that the outcome in Bavaria will have more than a “minimal” impact on the national vote.