(Bloomberg) -- Germany’s opposition conservatives maintained a strong lead in opinion polls ahead of the Feb. 23 election, though backing for the CDU/CSU alliance slipped slightly compared with the previous week.
The CDU/CSU led in the seven days to Nov. 18 with 32.3% support, compared with 33.0% the week before, according to a polling average calculated by Bloomberg. The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is second on 18.8% and Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) third on 15.8%.
If the conservatives under Friedrich Merz win the election, they will almost certainly need to form a coalition with at least one other party to secure a majority in the lower house of parliament. Their most likely partners are the SPD and the Greens.
German voters are heading to the polls after Scholz dismantled his three—way coalition with the Greens and the Free Democrats (FDP) on Nov. 6. He’s staying on for the time being in a minority government with the Greens.
Further poll details:
- The CDU/CSU’s polling average is 8.9 percentage points above its result at the last election in 2021
- The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) — a far-left party founded in January — gained the most, 1.5 points, since the previous week
- The Greens lost the most, 1.2 points
- Here’s how the major parties’ poll performance changed since the last election (weekly averages calculated from historical data):
- Here’s how the parties’ performance compares to last week’s and to the 2021 election results:
The averages used in this story are calculated using the latest polls by Germany’s eight major pollsters. The poll results are weighted by recency and number of respondents. Here are the polls used in this week’s calculation:
This story was produced with the assistance of Bloomberg Automation
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