Union leads in the trend barometer
Star of the SPD falls for the third week in a row
5/3/2022 2:03 p.m
In the Sunday question of the RTL / ntv trend barometer, the SPD falls further behind the Union. The gap increases to three percentage points while the other parties stagnate. This is frightening news for the left.
Approval for the SPD has fallen by four percentage points within three weeks. In the Sunday question in the RTL/ntv trend barometer, only 23 percent of those questioned stated that they wanted to vote for the Social Democrats. This continues the negative trend of the past few weeks. For the Chancellor Party, whose not always very clear course in Ukraine politics has recently been controversial, this is worrying in view of the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein next weekend and those in North Rhine-Westphalia, where elections will be held on May 15. The Union benefits in the survey by the Forsa Institute and increases by one percentage point to 26 percent.
The other two traffic light parties remain stable: the Greens at an unchanged good 20 percent. The FDP is still at 9 percent, as is the opposition party AfD. For the Left Party, on the other hand, the stagnation of their approval ratings is extremely worrying: for the fifth week in a row, the party has been below the all-important 5 percent value, with 4 percent approval, which is a prerequisite for entering the Bundestag even without direct mandates. Even in the current Bundestag, the left is only represented in parliamentary groups thanks to three direct mandates. Allegations of sexual assault within the party and an alleged lack of sensitivity to the issue among the party leadership further complicate the crisis of the only party to the left of the governing factions.
Concern about world war and rising energy prices
At first glance, the fact that support for the SPD is waning cannot be attributed to the chancellor. In a direct comparison, 43 percent of those surveyed would choose Olaf Scholz in a direct comparison – one percentage point more than in the previous week. Opposition leader Friedrich Merz can also gain one percentage point with 19 percent.
Another value indicates that voters’ doubts are directed more towards the SPD as a whole: only 13 percent of those surveyed named the party when asked who would be best at dealing with Germany’s problems. At the beginning of April, 20 percent of those surveyed still named the Social Democrats. The Greens were the only ones to gain ground on this question over the same period, and 15 percent of those surveyed now trust them with this problem-solving ability – the best value of all parties. The Union comes to 7 percent, the FDP to 3 percent.
The topic that worries people the most remains the Ukraine war, which 84 percent of respondents named. 35 percent mention the topic of energy, followed by the corona pandemic with 34 percent. When asked about their biggest concerns at the moment, 65 percent of those surveyed name “the financial burden of ever-increasing prices”. Just as many respondents fear “that the war in Ukraine could lead to a third world war.”