The first round is over in the long race for the SPD presidency. Candidates duo Klara Geywitz and Olaf Scholz as well as Norbert Walter-Borjans and Saskia Esken have made it to the runoff election.
Around 425,000 members of the SPD were allowed to vote on who should lead the party in the future. The participation was relatively low at 53.3 percent. The Brandenburg-born Geywitz and Federal Finance Minister Scholz got 22.68 percent, the member of parliament Esken and North Rhine-Westphalia's former Minister of Finance Walter-Borjans 21.04 percent.
Since no bidder reached an absolute majority, the members will now decide in late November in a ballot over the party presidency. The new dual leadership will be finally elected at a party congress in Berlin in December, with the delegates following the vote of the members.
For SPIEGEL opinion polling agency Civey asked 7534 citizens according to their preference: "For which candidate duo should the SPD members in your opinion in the ballot for the party presidency decide?"
More respondents wish Walter-Borjans and Esken at the top of the SPD (just under 37 percent) than Geywitz and Scholz (around 25 percent). With a little more than 38 percent, however, a relative majority of all participants spoke in favor of neither of the two candidate pairs.
Among SPD supporters , the lead of Walter-Borjans and Esken is greater: 54 percent of the interviewees who would vote in the Bund for the SPD spoke out in favor of the two as leaders. About 35 percent want Scholz and Geywitz.
Walter Borjans and Esken are considered the candidate duo of the left party wing. Accordingly, they are also much more popular among Greens and Left voters .
Geywitz and Scholz, on the other hand, enjoy much more popularity among Union voters and a bit more popularity among FDP supporters . The two stand for the right party wing; Vice-Chancellor Scholz more than any other candidate embodies the Grand Coalition. Seven out of ten AFD supporters and six out of ten voters from other parties expressed no preference.
A glance at the age groups shows that the younger the respondents the greater the popularity for Walter Borjans and Esken. Half of all 18 to 29-year-olds prefer the two to the duo Scholz / Geywitz.
The latter are only in the group of over-65-year-olds (just) ahead of their competitors. In the middle age groups the respondents, who do not prefer either duo, form the largest group.
In the East , Brandenburgers Geywitz and Scholz perform better than in the West . However, they are also here - albeit scarcer than in the West - behind Walter Borjans and Esken. In the East, the proportion of those who do not favor either pair of candidates is even greater than in the West.
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