Germany is getting a new chancellor. Its current leader is heading out of power, but his party probably will stick around in a diminished capacity. And the Trump administration’s efforts to influence the vote don’t seem to have done much.

Sunday’s election, which came months ahead of schedule after the country’s governing coalition crumbled late last year, produced a few surprises and a lot of suspense. Late in the evening in Berlin, it was unclear if the next government would be another wobbly three-party affair, like the one that fell apart last fall, or a return to the more durable two-party governments that had led Germany for most of this century.

Here are five takeaways from the returns.

Merz is the likely new chancellor.

The largest German turnout in decades gave the most votes to the center-right Christian Democrats and their sister party, the Christian Social Union. That almost certainly means the next chancellor will be Friedrich Merz, a businessman who flies his own private plane and has long coveted the top job.

Mr. Merz lost a power struggle to lead the Christian Democrats early in the 2000s, to Angela Merkel, who went on to serve 16 years as chancellor. Voters soured on her legacy, though, including an ill-fated plan to rely more heavily on Russia for natural gas and the decision to keep Germany’s borders open in 2015 and begin welcoming what would be millions of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

After the Christian Democrats fell out of power in 2021, Mr. Merz assumed leadership of the party and drove it to the right on migration and other issues. He was most comfortable campaigning on the economy, promising to peel back regulations and reduce taxes in a bid to reignite economic growth.