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Do you know this woman and this man?
The two Greens chairmen Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock are unknown to many young people
Photo: Sean Gallup / Getty Images
Habeck or Baerbock?
Laschet or Söder?
The question of which chancellor candidates will campaign this year electrifies the political public.
Many young people, on the other hand, are probably very little interested in the outcome of these duels - because they don't even know who Robert Habeck or Armin Laschet are.
This is suggested by a representative survey by the communications agency Fischerappelt in collaboration with the market research institute Appinio.
In the »Teengeist« survey, young people between the ages of 16 and 19 are regularly asked about their living environment - including about socio-political issues and preferences.
This generation grew up with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Many young people are now skeptical about the end of this era.
When asked how they feel about the upcoming change in leadership, around 40 percent answered "I think it is rather bad" or "I think it is bad".
Only 21 percent can see something positive about Merkel's departure.
This distrust of the new beginning could be related to the fact that many of the young people have nothing to do with the candidates who are now applying for Merkel's successor.
When asked about the Union's candidates for chancellor, more than 30 percent of those questioned neither knew who Armin Laschet nor who Markus Söder is, or had no opinion about them.
32 percent expressed the conviction that neither of the two should become a candidate for chancellor.
The remainder reflects Laschet's survey misery: The North Rhine-Westphalian Prime Minister is also less popular with young people than his counterpart from Bavaria.
Although the Fridays for Future movement has shown how important topics such as climate protection and sustainability are for young people, and the Greens were able to score points in recent elections, especially in the younger age groups, things do not look any better for the party leaders there.
More than half of the young people stated that they did not know either Robert Habeck or Annalena Baerbock, or that they had "no idea" who should lead the Greens in the federal elections.
Among the young people who are familiar with the green tip, both are on par, ten percent each would like Baerbock or Habeck in the Chancellery.
But: Here too, at least 25 percent of those surveyed wanted neither Baerbock nor Habeck.
The evaluation of individual politicians also shows how present Angela Merkel is in the younger generation. She is not only by far the best known among the representatives interviewed, but also the most popular. 82 percent of young people said they found Angela Merkel "okay" or "good". The Bavarian CSU Prime Minister Markus Söder follows in second place: 44 percent think he's good, 32 percent don't know him.
Olaf Scholz, on the other hand, who was named the SPD's top candidate in August last year and has held the office of Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister for three years, apparently does not have many young people on their radar: 50 percent said they did not know Scholz. Other top politicians such as Christian Lindner or Armin Laschet face similar problems: they are neither particularly well known nor extremely popular with young people.
And even young politicians apparently find it difficult to reach young people: Kevin Kühnert, until recently head of the SPD youth organization, did not know 67 percent of those surveyed.
Philipp Amthor, the youngest member of the Union in the Bundestag, can assign 55 percent.
However, Amthor is not popular: 28 percent of those questioned think it is “not good” or “bad”.
Amthor has the second highest rejection value after Armin Laschet.
The group of 16 to 19-year-olds is not politically disinterested, says Harald Ehren, who accompanies the "teen spirit" surveys for Fischerappelt.
"We saw in our previous surveys that this generation is thoroughly politicized." The young people would give a lot of thought to socio-political issues such as sustainability and education.
"But young people often find out about such topics through other channels," says Ehren. Instead of on television or in newspapers, political content is consumed on platforms such as YouTube, Instagram or TikTok. Reaching this target group there has apparently been difficult for politicians across the board.
