REAPING WHAT MERKEL HAS SOWN: Nationalist party set for gains as 3 German states vote.

Alternative for Germany, or AfD, formed three years ago, is wooing voters with slogans such as “ENOUGH!” and “Secure borders instead of borderless crime.”

It’s expected to enter legislatures Sunday in the diverse regions: prosperous Baden-Wuerttemberg in the southwest, neighboring Rhineland-Palatinate, and relatively poor Saxony-Anhalt in the east. Other parties won’t share power with it, but its performance could complicate efforts to form state governments — particularly in Saxony-Anhalt, where polls give it up to 19 percent support.

Germany registered nearly 1.1 million people as asylum-seekers last year as Merkel insisted “we will manage” the challenge, a stance lauded by many but that drove others into AfD’s arms.

What remains to be seen is whether AfD is just an outlet for angry protest voters, or harbinger of the future of German politics.