Friedrich Merz has a problem: Not even the supporters of the Union would like to see the majority of the CDU leader as chancellor - even though the CDU and CSU continue to lead in the party ranking. Otherwise, only the demoscopic view of the future is as gloomy as Merz' poll numbers.
The Union is in the electoral favor feathers again. According to the current RTL/ntv trend barometer, the CDU and CSU have lost one point compared to the previous week and, at 26 percent, are still just ahead of the Greens, who are stagnating at 24 percent of the vote. Chancellor Olaf Scholz's SPD also remains at 18 percent and thus remains only the third strongest force.
The remaining parties also recorded stable values: the FDP came to 7 percent, as in the previous week, the AfD to 10 and the left still did not get beyond 5 percent. The other parties gain slightly - by one percentage point.
Compared to the results of the 2021 federal election, the SPD remains the big loser, down 7.7 percentage points. The FDP has also lost significant support (-4.5), while the AfD has almost completely recovered from its interim low (-0.3). After 4.9 percentage points in the election, the left could now hope to enter parliament again, also based on votes. It at least reaches the 5 percent hurdle. The party is currently only sitting in the Bundestag thanks to the direct mandates it has won.
The big winners, on the other hand, are the Greens, who have been able to hold their ground at 24 percentage points for a month and a half (9.2). The Union has at least improved by 2.1 percentage points. However, the proportion of non-voters and undecided has also risen significantly - from 23.4 percent in the last election to 26 percent now.
Olaf Scholz can improve slightly on the Chancellor question. He gains one percentage point and is now just behind Robert Habeck with 24 percent. The Federal Minister of Economics loses another percentage point and only gets 27 percent of the votes. Far behind is CDU leader Friedrich Merz, who even lost 2 points compared to the previous week. He only gets 16 percent approval. Not even half of Union supporters would like to see him as chancellor. Scholz still has 64 percent of SPD supporters, and Habeck would even support 71 percent of Green supporters.
When it comes to the political competence of the parties, the Greens remain ahead of the SPD and Union. When asked who is best able to deal with the problems in Germany, 20 percent of those surveyed named the Greens. Only 9 percent believe in the political competence of the SPD, the Union also only comes to 10 percent. Only 4 percent of those surveyed consider the FDP to be competent. And more than half (53 percent) no longer trust any party to be able to solve the current problems.
When it comes to the future, respondents are more pessimistic than they have been for a long time. The Ukraine war and the energy crisis do not give respondents much hope for an economic recovery. 79 percent now believe that the economic situation will only get worse in the coming years. Only 6 percent remain optimistic. For comparison: in November 2021 it was still 21 percent.
The data was collected by the market and opinion research institute Forsa on behalf of RTL Germany from August 2nd to 8th, 2022. Database: 2504 respondents. Statistical error tolerance: /- 2.5 percentage points.
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