When chancellor Brandt stepped down in May 1974 following the unravelling of the Guillaume Affair, Kohl urged his party to restrain from "Schadenfreude" and not to use the position of their political opponent for "cheap polemics". In June, Kohl campaigned during the state elections in Lower Saxony for his party colleague Wilfried Hasselmann, leading the CDU to a strong result of 48.8% of the vote, even though it proved not enough to prevent a continuation of the social-liberal coalition in the state.