Two weeks following the municipal elections in Lower Saxony, incumbent mayors successfully retained their positions in runoff elections held on Sunday across the state’s major cities.
In Hannover, Belit Onay (Greens), who has served since 2019, is set to continue as mayor. With the counting of three-quarters of the votes complete, Onay currently holds about 61 percent, compared to 39 percent for his challenger, Axel von der Ohe (SPD).
The result in Braunschweig appears to favor incumbent mayor Thorsten Kornblum (SPD) even more significantly. After counting nearly half of the votes, he already reached approximately 75 percent, while his challenger, Maximilian Pohler (CDU), scored only around 25 percent.
In Osnabrück, incumbent Katharina Pötter (CDU) is also expected to keep her post. At the point where 85 percent of the votes had been tallied, she secured her position against Volker Bajus (Greens) with 57 percent to 43 percent.
Oldenburg saw a much tighter contest. Incumbent mayor Jürgen Krogmann (SPD) did not seek re-election. His party colleague, Ulf Prange (SPD), led the first round with 33.1 percent over Jascha Rohr (Greens) at 30.5 percent, but ultimately lost narrowly. After almost all polling districts were counted, Rohr achieved a strong 51 percent, just ahead of Prange’s 49 percent.
