The power struggle for the candidacy for chancellor of the Union is over, but for Armin Laschet it is unlikely to be more relaxed in the future. There are only about five months left until the Bundestag election on 26 September – and the poll numbers of the CDU chairman remain murky.
According to a representative survey by the opinion research institute Civey for der SPIEGEL, Laschet has a difficult situation among Union supporters of all people. Only one in four or one in four considers the decision against Söder as Chancellor candidate to be correct.
(Read the background to the Civey methodology here.)
Among the voters of the CDU and CSU, the frustration with the chancellor candidate Laschet is even greater than among all respondents. Here, only about 66 percent consider Laschet to be the wrong man in the race for the chancellorship.
Laschet’s poll numbers are also worrisome for the Union in direct comparison with the chancellor candidates of the Greens and SPD. If there were a direct election to the chancellor, only about 11 percent would vote for Laschet.
The CDU leader is thus behind the recently nominated Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock, who about 30 percent of respondents would vote directly. The current Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the SPD also performs better than Laschet with 17 percent.
Characteristic of Laschet’s weak support is that even among Union supporters only 25 percent would vote for Laschet directly in the Chancellery, 13 percent for Baerbock and 11 percent for Scholz.
With voters of the Greens and SPD, support for their respective candidate for chancellor is much more pronounced, with 86 percent for Baerbock and 68 percent for Scholz.
However, the Chancellor is of course not elected by direct election. The decisive factor is the share of votes for the parties. Here, the union parties remain at the 30 percent mark, while the Greens catch up and reach 25 percent.
However, the recent candidate decisions of the Union and the Greens are not yet fully reflected in the Sunday question. The Civey survey also included data from the time before Baerbocksand Laschet’s freestyle, as a constant survey interval of the past seven days is always considered. The full picture of the impact of the candidates will be published next week.
