GERMANY’S politicians are criss-crossing the icy state of Lower Saxony in a mad dash to win the vote there on January 20th, seen as a test run for this autumn’s federal election. But political boffins are interested for another reason. The state is not just a good representation of Germany, but has also become an incubator of political talent.

Uwe Alschner, a political strategist, likens it to Missouri, which American wonks study because it is in parts southern, western and mid-western, and is both urban and rural. Lower Saxony is part Catholic (in the west) and part Protestant. It has lots of farms but is also industrial (the home of Volkswagen) and urban, with several clusters of innovation. It has regional dialects but also the German accent seen as the most neutral of all: Hanoverian.

This gives Lower Saxony’s politicians an edge. The Weisswurstäquator (“white-sausage equator”), named after a Bavarian sausage and running east-west along the Main river, usually demarcates the cultural boundary south of which politicians are too exotic to get ahead in national politics. Among northern states, North Rhine-Westphalia, home to the largest population and the first post-war chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, has tended to have the most clout. It spawned the political elite of Bonn (capital of West Germany), and still fields a few hopefuls today, such as Peer Steinbrück, the Social Democrat (SPD) who is challenging Angela Merkel to become chancellor.

Lower Saxony has been rising ever since Gerhard Schröder, then its premier, became chancellor in 1998. (He is now back in Hanover where his fourth wife, Doris Schröder-Köpf, is running for her own seat in the state parliament.) In 2010 a later state premier, Christian Wulff, became president, Germany’s highest office. He resigned in 2012 amid various scandals, but Germans still watch his legal and personal travails with morbid fascination. Lower Saxony’s influence is also growing among up-and-coming politicos. The SPD is led by Sigmar Gabriel, who was premier of Lower Saxony between Mr Schröder and Mr Wulff. The boss of the liberal Free Democrats is Philipp Rösler, who once led his party in Lower Saxony’s parliament.

Lower Saxons are also a force in Mrs Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Her labour minister is Ursula von der Leyen, daughter of another former premier of Lower Saxony, Ernst Albrecht. And the current premier, David McAllister, who is battling to stay after January 20th, is seen as something of an heir-apparent in the CDU. “I like being Merkel’s Mac,” he joked this week to the sound of 2,000 middle-aged people cheering in a hangar in Hildesheim, as Mrs Merkel smiled benevolently.