FULDA, Germany — It is telling of the flagging strength of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany that when she showed up this week to lend support to her party in Hesse before bellwether elections on Sunday, she all but urged voters not to consider her.

“If people say, ‘Merkel was there; did you tell her that things can’t continue the way they are in Berlin?’ I would say I know that already,” the chancellor told a crowd in Fulda, a town of some 65,000 people, asking them to focus on local issues instead.

With that backhanded endorsement, the chancellor seemed to acknowledge that her party’s biggest problem before Sunday’s vote may be the chancellor herself, deepening speculation about how much longer she can survive politically.

Just two weeks ago, balloting in the southern state of Bavaria saw support crater for Ms. Merkel’s conservative allies, which was bad enough. But in Hesse, Ms. Merkel’s own Christian Democratic party is in the race, and a similar outcome could even precipitate the end of Ms. Merkel’s reign, political analysts say.