Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD) have opened up a bigger lead over Armin Laschet’s conservative bloc, ahead of a primetime television debate between the three main candidates to succeed Angela Merkel as Chancellor.
Two weeks before a national election that has proved to be unexpectedly turbulent, the INSA poll for Bild am Sonntag put the centre-left SPD on 26%, up a point from a week ago and their highest rating since June 2017.
Laschet’s conservative bloc was unchanged at 20% and the Greens were down 1 point at 15%.
Despite losing 8-9 percentage points in the last three months, Laschet told Deutschlandfunk (DLF) radio the conservatives had not given up, insisting there was still time to win.
The conservatives are already missing the pulling power of Merkel, who after four election victories and 16 years leading Europe’s biggest economy is not running again.
This week’s edition of the influential Spiegel magazine has a front cover picture of Laschet holding his hands in front of his mouth with the headline “Oooops”.
The leader of Germany’s most populous state has made mistakes during the campaign, including being caught on camera laughing during a visit to a town hit by lethal floods in July. He apologised. Laschet has started targeting the SPD’s chancellor candidate directly and said Olaf Scholz could form an alliance with the Greens and the far-left Linke that would raise taxes and make foreign policy mistakes
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