The verb vereinen in the context of State elections

Question

The election results on the bpd website the sentence read. "Mit 25,7 Prozent errang die SPD deutlich mehr Stimmen als die zweitplatzierte CDU, die 18,9 Prozent der Wählerstimmen auf sich vereinte." Source: https://www.bpb.de/kurz-knapp/zahlen-und-fakten/bundestagswahlen/

The dictionary dict.cc entry for vereinen means to combine or unite in this context that doesn't make sense.

From the Deepl translate it meaning was took or received in this context.

In my writing need to find a synonym with a similar meaning to "receive or took" a percentage of the votes.

What verb would be more usual in this context?

Answer 1

That phrase auf sich vereinen has no direct counterpart in English. If you throw it into Linguee for example and look into external sources you can see that other people struggled with it as well.

You have to rephrase. The nearest translation in your context is to accumulate but that would sound too odd in English.