The short campaign for the early election on February 23 is coming to an end. The politicians don't have much time left to convince voters to vote for them. The incumbent chancellor, Olaf Scholz, still believes that his center-left Social Democrats (SPD) will pull ahead and that he will also head the next government.

Given the current poll figures, this does not seem particularly realistic. In 2021, the SPD won the Bundestag election with 25.7% of the vote. In the current ARD Deutschlandtrend poll, it is down to 14%, which is one percentage point less than the week before.

From February 10 to 12, the pollsters surveyed a representative sample of 1,579 individuals who are eligible to vote. The conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian "sister party" Christian Social Union (CSU) have slightly increased their lead in the poll to 32% (+1). The far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) remains in second place at 21%.

The environmentalist Greens, currently in a minority government with the SPD, remain at 14%. The Left Party now polls at 6% — enough for representation in parliament — while the new populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which broke from the Left party in 2024, would fail to cross the 5% threshold at 4.5%, as would the neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) at 4%.

One-third of all eligible voters still undecided

However, there are still undecided voters. Not as many as there were ahead of general elections in 2017 and 2021 days before the vote, but enough to make a difference.

One in eight (13%) of the voters polled said their party preference could still change by election day. One in five (18%) said they might not vote at all.

Which party should lead the government?

The center-left government of SPD, Greens, and FDP which collapsed at the beginning of November 2024, was the most unpopular in German history. Infratest-dimap now asked voters which party should lead the future government. Thirty-five percent named the CDU/CSU, only 17% would like to see another SPD-led coalition, while 11% said they favor a government led by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and 9% favor the Greens.

No popular candidate for chancellor

Thirty-four percent of those polled said the CDU/CSU's top candidate Friedrich Merz would make a good chancellor. That puts him ahead of his competitors, incumbent SPD chancellor Olaf Scholz (26%; +1) Green Party candidate Robert Habeck (25%; -1) and the AfD's Alice Weidel (19%; +1).

These are the lowest numbers ever polled for a top candidate before an election. In 2021, just before Olaf Scholz took office, 51% of voters said he would be a good chancellor.

Which parties could govern together?

Should the CDU/CSU emerge as the strongest party in the election, it would not be able to govern alone but would need to team up with at least one other party to secure a majority of the votes in the Bundestag, the lower house of Parliament.

Coalitions between the CDU/CSU and SPD as well as the CDU/CSU and Greens would be possible. A coalition with the AfD would be mathematically possible, but it has been categorically ruled out by the CDU/CSU, although 17% of respondents to the latest poll named this as their preferred combination.

Most respondents said they'd like to see another coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD, which governed Germany under Chancellor Angela Merkel before 2021.

Sixteen percent favor a CDU/CSU coalition with the Greens, a combination that exists in several of Germany's 16 states, but has been ruled out by Bavaria's powerful premier, CSU chairman Markus Söder.

Eleven percent of those polled said they would like to see another CDU/CSU coalition with the FDP, which Germany has seen before, at times when the CDU/CSU was much stronger.

This article was originally written in German.

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