Alongside the European Parliament elections, voters in about half of German states cast ballots to elect local officials on Sunday.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) made significant gains in the eastern German states of Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Brandenburg, according to interim results.
But the AfD came away empty handed in run-off elections in Thuringia, where AfD candidates were seeking the district administrator post in nine different municipalities.
A neo-Nazi activist, Tommy Frenck, collected 31% of the vote in the district of Hildburghausen in Thuringia but was defeated by Sven Gregor from the conservative Free Voter party. Frenck is nationally known in Germany for organizing a series of large neo-Nazi concerts.
There were signs of a neck-and-neck race between the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and AfD in the district and city council elections in Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Brandenburg.
In Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia, the vote is seen as a test of public opinion ahead of the state parliament elections in September, in which the AfD is projected to do well.
In the first round of Thuringia's local elections, the party won a number of additional seats in local parliaments, but did not manage to gain seats in town halls and district councils.
In the former communist East Germany, the AfD led all other parties in projected results on Sunday from the European Parliament elections. Nationally, the AfD trailed only the CDU.
In the wealthy south-western German state of Baden-Württemberg, the Greens were forecast to lose control of two of the state's largest cities, Stuttgart and Mannheim. The CDU was projected to replace the Greens in both cities.
