The center-left party has ruled NRW for 46 of the last 51 years.
Mindful that local issues can tip the balance, Merkel has also blamed the incumbents for persistent traffic jams that "are longer than from here to the moon".
The second victor was the charismatic, 38-year-old leader of the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), Christian Lindner, his party's top candidate in the state.
The SPD only managed to garner 30.6 per cent, sharply down from its 2012 score of 39.1 per cent, in a serious hit to confidence ahead of general elections in September.
CDU General Secretary Peter Tauber crowed over the election results at a party gathering in Berlin, saying his party had "conquered the heart" of the SPD.
Carsten Nickel, an analyst with Teneo Intelligence, said the NRW result was a sign that Merkel was on her way to re-election.
The reasonable scenario at this point would be a Big Coalition where the Conservatives would have the SPD as a junior partner.
Germen Chancellor Merkel's party beat its rival Social Democrats in their stronghold in North Rhine-Westphalia, Deutsche Welle reported.
However, pre-election polls indicated that the SPD is in a tie with Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrat (CDU) Party.
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Another option for Laschet is a tie-up with his party's traditional allies, the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), a coalition which would have a thin parliamentary majority.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) will also enter North Rhine-Westphalia's parliament for the first time, after accumulating 7.7 percent of the vote.
The industrial state has been governed by a center-left coalition of the SPD and the Greens since 2010, with Social Democrat Hannelore Kraft serving as state governor. We had two goals in this election, to stop red-green and become strongest political power.
Voter turnout in Sunday's elections in North Rhine-Westphalia was markedly higher than five years ago, amounting to 65.2%. This is the third consecutive failure of the SPD over the last two months - after the elections in the federal states of Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein.
For former state premier Hannelaure Kraft the loss was too much, and she resigned, an unusual step but indicative of the severity of the defeat for the SPD.
"I gave it my best. It is a rocky road, but the SPD is a battle-hardened party and we will put up a fight in the elections", he said.
"This was a committed election, but it wasn't enough". The campaign "will be mainly about concepts for the future", including the digital economy, education and research, she said.
"It's a hard day for the SPD, a hard day for me personally", Schulz told supporters in Berlin. "I hail from the state where we just suffered a crushing election defeat", Schulz stated.
Thus, the candidate of the SPD Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia Hannelore Kraft (Hannelore Kraft) will probably lose the post of Prime Minister.
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