Just 16 months in office, Merz has seen his approval ratings plummet while his party has suffered a string of regional election losses against the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which also leads nationwide polls.

Fighting speculation that his CDU/CSU bloc may try to oust him, 70-year-old Merz took the unusual step of addressing the nation on TV on Sunday, just minutes after the first exit polls were announced.

Merz admitted that his CDU had suffered a "disaster" in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state – and that was before the CDU dropped below five percent there in the ongoing count, meaning it got kicked out of parliament altogether.

While the AfD came first there, the center-left SPD party looks set to continue governing the state by forming a coalition with left-wing allies.

After the CDU was also soundly defeated by a far-left Die Linke in Berlin, Merz charged that "trust in our country's institutions is waning" and being "actively undermined by radical parties on both the left and the right".

"What needs to be done now requires backbone, steadfastness and patience," Merz said. "I will demonstrate this as CDU party chairman and, above all, as chancellor of our country."

Analysts saw it as an attempt to gain the advantage before another hailstorm of criticism comes raining down.

"His extremely early move shows that Merz is staking a claim to define the narrative," political scientist Oliver Lembcke of Ruhr University Bochum told AFP.

Lembcke labelled this "leadership from a defensive position – and an attempt to prevent a personnel debate with an uncertain outcome from gathering steam".

ING bank economist Carsten Brzeski said about Merz's unusual TV address: "Read the appearance for what it was, an attempt to choke off the speculation about his possible resignation that has been building in recent weeks."

Tough week ahead

After Sunday's CDU crisis meeting, the chancellor has also cleared his calendar for the following days and skipped a trip to New York for the UN General Assembly, to deal with potential aftershocks from the votes.

Merz has been fighting off rumors for weeks he may be ousted by his center-right CDU/CSU bloc.

Names of hopefuls for the top job that have been floated include Hendrik Wuest, state premier of populous North Rhine-Westphalia, and Markus Soeder, the Bavarian state premier and head of the CSU, the regional sister party of the CDU.

However, no contender has made an open move for the job – perhaps fearing the act of disloyalty could backfire, or intimidated by the tough task of trying to revive the party's fortunes during one of its worst-ever crises.

When Merz took office in May last year, he vowed to reboot a flagging economy, rebuild the military to deter Russia, and reduce irregular immigration to soothe voters' fears and lure them away from the AfD.

But the AfD now leads nationwide polls and Merz's personal approval ratings hover just above 10 percent, not helped by his occasionally blunt and abrasive comments.

The latest elections came two weeks after the far-right, pro-Trump and Moscow-friendly AfD also dealt a stunning defeat to the CDU in the state of Saxony-Anhalt.

The string of election debacles comes as Merz has struggled to push through promised economic and social welfare reforms with his coalition partners the SPD.

Under-fire Merz received some badly needed support from CDU powerbrokers last week when eight state premiers declared jointly that Germany needs "stability now more than ever" rather than "discussions about personnel".

They refrained, however, from issuing a personal endorsement for Merz.

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