Mrs Merkel’s CDU party had its worst parliamentary election result since 1949 in the September poll, as well as experiencing devastating losses in regional votes.
However the German Chancellor has doubled down, claiming: “I do not see what we should do differently.”
The general secretary of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the CSU, has made equally oblivious comments, claiming the Austrian election results show “that elections can be won right from the middle” – despite huge gains for the right in both Austria and Germany.
Meanwhile the CDU regional president of Saxony has stepped down after especially disastrous local election results.
Stanislaw Tillich, the region’s president since 2008, will leave office in December after Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the biggest party in Saxony’s regional parliament.
The shock result has prompted significant CDU soul-searching in the region. Mr Tillich has said the challenges for his party should be “passed into younger hands”.
The economic chief of the CDU/CSU partnership, Carsten Linnemann, has said: “There can be no ‘weiter so’ (carrying on as before) for the Union.”
However Mrs Merkel’s comments suggest she sees the situation differently.
As well as huge losses in the parliamentary elections, Mrs Merkel’s party faltered in its regional elections – albeit not always as disastrously as in Saxony.
In Lower Saxony, where it was thought the CDU would storm to victory and become the largest party in the region, the Socialist Party have remained in power.
There, regional party chief Bernd Althusmann went on the defensive after realising Mrs Merkel’s controversial refugee policy had taken the wind out of the party’s sails.
He said: “We would have liked to have more wind behind us.
“The refugee policy was misjudged. We have to make sure our values still align with the feelings of the population.”
The CDU is set to lose money as well as political sway following the votes.
German political parties are financed by the government, with the money divvied out according to results in the most recent local and national elections, and according to party donations.
And due to her poor showing in the recent election, the Chancellor can now expect a much smaller share of the €160 million annual pot after being left struggling to form a coalition.
The CDU was 1.6 million votes behind its previous total and states to receive €1.7 million less in 2018.
Its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, also stands to lose revenue.