Germany: Merkel's CDU and Social Democrats level in polls
Alex Berry
August 22, 2021
Support for the center-left and center-right parties in the run up to September's election has leveled out. Support for Merkel's CDU has fallen since the 2017 election.
Election posters have gone up all across Germany ahead of September's voteImage: Andreas Gora/picture alliance
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With just five weeks to go until Germany's parliamentary elections, the two parties in the current ruling coalition are set to win similar numbers of votes, according to a recent poll published by research institute INSA on Sunday.
The center-right conservative bloc (CDU/CSU) and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) polled equally at 22% for the first time in an INSA poll since April 2017.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU dropped three percentage points since August 14, while the SPD were up two percentage points. This leaves the SPD leading the Greens despite the latter's dramatic rise earlier in the year.
No clear coalition
Polling remained stable for the other main parties: The Greens, the pro-market liberal Free Democrats (FDP), the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the far-left Left (Linke) party.
If the poll results are the same on election day, September 26, no party will be able to form a government alone, likely leading to months of negotiating to build a coalition between several parties.
The current coalition of SPD and CDU would no longer be viable as together they would not control 50% of Bundestag. One of the key questions in the lead up to the election is which parties would be willing to enter a coalition with which other parties.
Germany's colorful coalition shorthand
Foreign flags and even traffic lights are used to describe the various coalitions that emerge in German elections. Coalitions are common under Germany's proportional representation system.
Image: Getty Images
'Traffic light' coalition — Red, Yellow, Green
Since 2021 Germany has been governed by a center-left coalition of Social Democrats (SPD), ecologist Greens, and free-market-oriented neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP), whose color is yellow. They started out as a self-declared "Fortschrittskoalition" (progress coalition) but got mired in infighting along the way.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/J.Büttner
Black-red coalition
The Conservative's black combined with transformative red is the color code when the Christian Democrats govern in a "grand coalition" with the Social Democrats. This combination of Germany's two big tent parties, was in power for eight years until 2021, led by then-Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Image: picture-alliance/R. Goldmann
'Pizza Connection' — precursor to Black and Green
When Bonn was still Germany's capital, conservative and Greens lawmakers started meeting informally in an Italian restaurant, in what became known as the 'Pizza Connection.' At the regional level, Baden-Württemburg's Greens-CDU coalition has governed since 2016 and Germany's most populous state of North-Rhine Westphalia has had a Black-Green government since 2022.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
'Jamaica' option — black, yellow and green
A three-way deal between the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), the Greens and the neoliberal Free Democrats FDP), whose color is yellow did not come about at national level in 2017 after the FDP called off talks. It has been tested at a state level, where Schleswig-Holstein had a "Jamaica" government until they went Black-Green in 2022.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/dpaweb
Black, Red, Green — like Kenya's flag
The eastern German state of Saxony has been governed by a coalition of CDU, SPD and Greens, headed by the state's popular Premier Michael Kretschmer. He is hoping to be able to stay in power despite the rise of the right-wing extremist Alternative for Germany (AfD) which is campaigning on an anti-immigrant and anti-NATO agenda.
Image: Fotolia/aaastocks
The Germany coalition — Black, Red and Yellow
The eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt has been governed by a coalition led by the CDU's popular Premier Rainer Haseloff. He has teamed up with the SPD and the FDP. The alliance of unlikely bedfellows was the only viable option to ward off the threat by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Image: Hoffmann/Caro/picture alliance
Black and Orange
Since 2018 Bavaria's Christian Social Union (CSU) has been governing with the Free Voters (FV), whose color is Orange. The FV is a grass-roots populist and far-right-leaning party and is led by its controversial chairman Hubert Aiwanger. Strong in rural areas of southern and eastern Germany, the Freie Wähler is seeking a larger role at the national level and currently has three MEPs.
Image: Privat
Violet and Black?
In graphics showing opinion polls, the new Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) is shown in violet. That may be fitting, as it combines socialist, far-left (red) with populist right wing (blue) ideas in its platform. Although the party was only founded in 2024, it is doing so well in the eastern German states that it may well be asked to join coalition governments. Possibly led by the CDU (Black).
Image: Oliver Berg/dpa/picture alliance
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Conservatives face loss of support
Sunday's poll, although far from being a final representation of voters' decisions on election day, marks a large drop in support for the conservatives since the 2017 election when they won 33% of the vote.
Although Germans do not vote directly for the chancellor, polls have shown Laschet's own personal popularity to be relatively low. The chancellor candidate for the SPD, Olaf Scholz, has continuously proven to be the most popular candidate with 34% of those polled saying they would vote for him to be chancellor if it were possible.
INSA surveyed 1,352 people between August 16 and 20 for its poll.
