Pistorius at the front
Scholz and Merz lag behind in the ranking of politicians
October 31, 2023, 2:02 p.m
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When asked which politicians the Germans believe the country is in good hands with, Defense Minister Pistorius continues to receive the most points. The Chancellor follows further behind, even further behind the CDU chairman.
Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius continues to lead the polling institute Forsa’s ranking of politicians. As in the previous month, the SPD politician received an average of 57 out of 100 possible points from the Germans. That is nine points more than the second-placed, Schleswig-Holstein Prime Minister Daniel Günther.
Pistorius is a full 17 points ahead of the next SPD politician in this ranking, party leader Lars Klingbeil, who is in sixth place – behind a whole squad of Union Prime Ministers: Hendrik Wüst from North Rhine-Westphalia, Boris Rhein from Hesse and Markus Söder from Bavaria.
The Forsa politician ranking regularly determines which politicians citizens believe the country is “in good hands”. Respondents can give their assessment with values from 0 (“it is not at all in good hands”) to 100 (“it is completely in good hands”).
Scholz in ninth place
As the first Green politician in the ranking, Klingbeil is followed by Federal Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir with 40 points. Like Boris Rhein, Özdemir is new on the list – in September, Baden-Württemberg Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann was still in fourth place.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz only achieved ninth place with 37 points, behind Labor Minister Hubertus Heil. He is the third Social Democrat on the list. Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is tied with Scholz. FDP leader and Finance Minister Christian Lindner fell four points behind compared to September and only reached 13th place. CDU leader Friedrich Merz is tied with Lindner. The biggest point loss is for Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser.
The left-wing politician Sahra Wagenknecht comes in 16th place together with Faeser. After the announcement that they wanted to found a new party, their trust score only improved slightly by one point from 22 to 23 points. At the bottom of the ranking are the AfD leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla.
Among the traffic light ministers, only Habeck can make gains
The ranking looks a little different if you break it down according to your own followers. Among SPD supporters, Chancellor Scholz comes in first place, tied with Pistorius, but loses three points. The main loser here is Interior Minister Faeser, with nine points less than in September.
Baerbock and Habeck each have 74 points among Green Party supporters. For Baerbock this is a minus of one point compared to September, for Habeck it is a plus of two points. Habeck is the only minister in the traffic light coalition who can gain among his own supporters.
Merz clearly behind Söder
Of the Union’s political actors, CSU leader Söder gained 4 points more trust among CSU supporters after the election in Bavaria than in September. With 82 points, he has the highest trust among his own party’s supporters of all 20 politicians included in the October ranking.
Söder’s support among his party’s supporters is still significantly greater than that of CDU chairman Merz among CDU supporters with 56 points. This means that Merz’s trust remains significantly lower than that of Wüst, Günther and Rhein among CDU supporters. The relatively low trust of CDU supporters in Merz is also reflected in the question of chancellor in the current trend barometer.
Wagenknecht’s ratings among AfD supporters remain stable
Trust in Sahra Wagenknecht among her previous party’s supporters had already declined drastically in September. After the announcement of the founding of their own party, their trust rating among the Left’s supporters fell again to just 33 points. Two years ago in October 2021, she still had a trust score of 62 points among left-wing supporters.
Incidentally, Wagenknecht’s trust has fallen to a similar extent in the east and west of the Republic since October 2021. Only among AfD supporters has their trust remained almost unchanged over the last two years.
The data for the politician ranking was collected by the market and opinion research institute Forsa on behalf of RTL Deutschland between October 25th and 27th. Database: 1510 respondents.
Further information about Forsa here.
Forsa surveys commissioned by RTL Deutschland.