(Bloomberg) -- Markus Soeder, Bavaria’s state premier, expanded his lead in the race to follow Angela Merkel as German chancellor, the latest public opinion poll showed.
Nearly two-thirds of those polled in broadcaster ZDF’s regular Politbarometer survey consider Soeder to be suitable for the country’s top job, more than twice what he garnered in March. Finance Minister Olaf Scholz is seen as fit for the post by 48%, followed by Merkel-nemesis Friedrich Merz with 31% and Green leader Robert Habeck with 29%.
Europe’s largest nation will hold general elections next year, and Merkel has repeatedly said that she doesn’t intend to seek a fifth term. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer was in line to replace Merkel, but a series of gaffes and flagging popularity prompted her to step down as leader of the Christian Democratic party, throwing open the race to lead Europe’s biggest economy.
Soeder, who was one of the protagonists during Germany’s largely successful fight against the coronavirus, last weekend gave the strongest indication yet that he intends to seek the chancellor candidacy for the conservative bloc.
Any potential candidate would have to have proven himself in combating the pandemic, he told the Berlin-based Tagesspiegel newspaper. While he continued to insist his place is in Bavaria, the statement was seen as a self-promotion and a stab at his main rivals.
Armin Laschet, the premier of North Rhine-Westphalia, is under pressure after a hot spot flared up in a meat-packing plant in his state. Only 19% of those polled in Politbarometer think Laschet is apt to lead the country. Meanwhile, Merz doesn’t currently hold political office.
Soeder’s path is complicated, because he hails from the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Merkel’s CDU. A new head of the larger conservative group will be chosen at a convention in December, then the two groups will discuss a campaign strategy. Except for rare exceptions, the bloc’s chancellor candidate has traditionally come from the CDU.
The coronavirus has been a boon for the conservative bloc, thanks to Merkel’s steady hand in navigating Germany through the crisis. That’s distracted voters from environmental concerns, which a year ago had put the Greens neck and neck with the country’s strongest political force. The Greens would now garner 20% or roughly half of the CDU/CSU bloc in a nationwide election, the poll showed.
Politibarometer was carried out by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, which surveyed 1,126 people betwen July 7 and July 9. It has a margin of error of as much as three percentage points.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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