It’s not the women
Survey reveals Merz’s big problem
Updated on December 11, 2024Reading time: 3 min.
Friedrich Merz is the favorite in the race for the chancellorship. However, he does poorly with one group of voters.
Four candidates for chancellor are running for the federal election in February. Friedrich Merz’s CDU is currently by far the strongest force in the polls, which is why observers already see Merz as the next chancellor.
However, experts repeatedly attest to a weak point in women. A current representative survey by the opinion research institute Forsa for RTL and n-tv now shows quite clearly: Merz’s biggest weakness is something else.
If the Germans were to elect the Chancellor directly, Merz would be in first place nationwide with 25 percent approval, followed by Robert Habeck (Greens) with 20, Olaf Scholz (SPD) with 17 and Alice Weidel (AfD) with 16 percent . 22 percent do not want any of the four candidates as chancellor.
However, if you only take the vote of the East Germans, Merz does much worse, and the overall order looks different. AfD leader Alice Weidel is in first place among East Germans with 31 percent, Olaf Scholz is in second place with 23 percent, CDU candidate Merz is in third place with 16 percent and Green Party candidate Habeck is in last place with just nine percent .
However, no other party wants to form a coalition with Weidel’s far-right AfD. So she has no chance of moving into the Chancellery.
One reason for this could be the candidates’ stance on rearmament issues and the war in Ukraine. The ties to the West are traditionally weaker in the East, and the NATO defense alliance and interventions abroad are viewed more critically than in the West. While Scholz and Weidel are insisting on restraint in the Ukraine war, especially during the election campaign, Merz and Habeck are calling for greater support for the country attacked by Russia.
Merz, for example, just traveled to Ukraine himself and advocated lifting the range restrictions on Western weapons used by the Ukrainian military. Scholz, on the other hand, insists, despite sharp criticism, that he will not deliver any long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine.
The West, however, is more crucial for victory in federal elections because a large proportion of the voters live here. Merz performs much better there with 27 percent and is in first place. He is followed by Robert Habeck (22 percent), Olaf Scholz (16 percent) and Alice Weidel (14 percent).
And Merz’s woman problem? According to the Forsa survey, this is not as pronounced as some people might think.
With 23 percent approval, Robert Habeck is the leader among women in the survey. Merz, however, does hardly worse at 22 percent. SPD chancellor and candidate for chancellor Scholz, on the other hand, only gets 19 percent.
The only woman in the race performs worst among women: Alice Weidel only receives 12 percent approval from her own gender.
However, a different perception is likely to cause interest among party strategists in the Konrad Adenauer House. According to a Forsa survey for “stern”, 66 percent of Germans think that Merz leaves citizens unclear about many of his ideas. Only 24 percent have the impression that he is open about what policies he would pursue in the Chancellery. 10 percent express no opinion.
Even 55 percent of CDU and CSU voters say that their own candidate leaves citizens unclear about many of his ideas. The proportion is even larger among supporters of the SPD (83 percent), Greens (71 percent), AfD (76 percent) and BSW (83 percent). The majority of FDP voters alone are of the opinion that Merz is specific enough (47 to 46 percent).