German election: Opinion polls upend CDU and SPD party campaigns
With three weeks to go to Germany’s election, the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has resorted to suggesting that high-flying Social Democrat contender Olaf Scholz as intending to team up with radical socialists threatening to burn down Germany’s fortress.
At a campaign rally in southern Germany, CDU chancellor candidate Armin Laschet said a Scholz-led coalition with the Greens and the socialist Left party would weaken the military and leave the country defenseless. Referring to a possible coalition between the center-left SPD, the Green Party, and the communist Left Party he warned: “Red-green cannot take on responsibility, even just in foreign policy,” he said according to a report by the RND media outlet. “That is a security risk.”
At a recent TV debate against Scholz and Green candidate Annalena Baerbock, Laschet demanded that both his opponents rule out a coalition with the socialist Left Party (which they refused to do).
The line was taken up by other leading conservative figures. Markus Söder, leader of the CDU’s Bavarian sister-party the Christian Social Union (CSU), wheeled out a line that has been used by the center-right since the Left’s inception, Söder accused the socialist party of failing to distance itself from the communist East German dictatorship.
In response, SPD co-chairpeople Norbert Walter-Borjans and Saskia Esken accused the CDU/CSU of running a “campaign of fear” from “the 90s.” “And it’s clearly not working,” Esken added for good measure.
The CDU famously campaigned against a communist alliance in 1994 — symbolized by a red sock
CDU in despair
The note of desperation is understandable:Laschet’s CDU has been in second place in opinion polls for a week now, and the latest two polls — released last weekend by INSA and Yougov — saw the SPD with a five-point lead: 25%, against the CDU’s 20% and the Greens’ 15%-16%. An unusual turn, considering pollsters had put the SPD at a mere 15% only a couple of months ago (andthe Greens at high-flying 26%).
The latest numbers indicate a catastrophic return for Laschet, given that the CDU was well over 20 points ahead of the SPD in mid-2020 when many expected the election campaign to be a procession to the chancellery for the conservatives. And the candidate himself is being blamed for the dramatic
So far, the CDU’s strategy for turning this tide — apart from spooking voters with the specter of the radical left — is to pressure its usual coalition partners. Friedrich Merz, an erstwhile rival who Laschet has drawn into his core campaign team, has demanded that the pro-free market Free Democratic Party (FDP) rule out a coalition with the SPD and the Greens.
In response on public broadcaster ARD, FDP leader Christian Lindner refused to be drawn, though he did say that his party’s manifesto was closer to that of the CDU than either the SPD and the Greens. “At this point, an attractive offer from Mr. Scholz would be a surprise,” Lindner coyly told Der Spiegel.
Polling problems
The SPD, meanwhile, has learned the hard way not to get too excited. Before the last election in 2017, their candidate Martin Schulz was riding a wave of good press and goodwill. The former European Parliament president had caught up with Angela Merkel’s CDU in the polls, only to slump to a historically bad 20% when the actual election came round.
That, along with the lessons learned from polling ahead of the 2016 US presidential election, has shaken many pundits’ faith in opinion polls. As Thomas Wind, founder and managing director of the Institute for Target Group Communication (IfZ), told DW in August, pollsters sometimes struggle to reach certain demographics, and undecided voters are often excluded from the published results.
“The undecided pose a problem for us because they can make up 20% or more of the people polled,” said Wind.
Not only that, it polls generally have margins of error of between two and three points, which in the case of current German polling would mean that the CDU and SPD could easily be neck and neck in reality.
And what will it mean that postal voting is well underway,with up to 50% of the electorate estimated to be opting for a mail-in ballot, largely because of the COVID pandemic?
Coalition flirtation
In a race this tight, in which it looks unlikely that two parties will have enough to form a government alone, coalition speculation has itself become an election issue. Though they prefer to straight-bat such questions until after the election, party leaders are already opening up their options.
The Left Party, for example, has indeed shown signs that it might blur some of its red lines for the first-ever chance at government: The socialist leading candidate Dietmar Bartsch told a podcast by the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger last Thursday that if a potential SPD-Green-Left coalition had a majority after the election, he would be “prepared to talk about anything.” That would presumably mean compromises on the Left’s plans to replace NATO with a security alliance that includes Russia.
But such a coalition would be unprecedented, and few political observers expect the SPD to swing that way, should they win: More likely, not least given the fact that the FDP is polling at 13%, the SPD is likely to try and shore up a centrist alliance by making a pitch to the pro-business party. But much could still happen in the next three weeks.
While you’re here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society, with an eye toward understanding this year’s elections and beyond. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing, to stay on top of developments as Germany enters the post-Merkel era.
Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/german-election-opinion-polls-upend-cdu-and-spd-party-campaigns/a-59103712?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf