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The green candidate for Chancellor Annalena Baerbock
Photo: LEON KUEGELER / REUTERS
The Greens want to move into the Chancellery with Annalena Baerbock - and the Union now wants to keep the place with Armin Laschet.
However, if the voters have their way, it could be difficult for Laschet.
In a current survey by the opinion research institute Forsa on behalf of the RTL / ntv trend barometer, the Greens are passing the Union for the first time.
While the CDU / CSU fell by seven percentage points to 21 percent, Alliance 90 / The Greens rose by five percentage points and are now in first place with 28 percent.
The SPD loses two percentage points in the Sunday question and comes to 13 percent.
The FDP wins two, the Left and the other smaller parties each gain one percentage point.
Only with the AfD nothing changes.
Union gambled away with back and forth trust
However, it is unclear in the survey how much of a difference exactly the personal details Baerbock and Laschet are.
A total of 3505 people were surveyed between April 13th and 20th, 2021, but 1502 of them on April 20th alone - when it was clear that Baerbock and Laschet would each be in the running for the Chancellery for their parties.
What is clear: that the long back and forth between Laschet and his rival Markus Söder has damaged the Union.
In the last Forsa survey in the previous week, the party numbers had changed only insignificantly.
The polling institute also asked how the Germans feel about Baerbock and Laschet. 54 percent of those surveyed think it is a good decision that Annalena Baerbock has become the Greens' candidate for chancellor. 23 percent would have found it better if Robert Habeck had become the top candidate. Of the supporters of the Greens, 79 percent welcome Baerbock's nomination.
32 percent of those surveyed think it is good that the majority of the CDU federal executive has spoken out in favor of Armin Laschet as the Union's candidate for chancellor.
Markus Söder would have preferred 47 percent.
Of the Union supporters, a clear majority does not consider the decision in favor of Laschet to be a good one: 58 percent of the CDU supporters and 88 percent of the CSU supporters would have preferred Söder.
Only 5 percent of CSU supporters think it is good that Laschet is leading the Union in the election campaign.
A head start for Annalena Baerbock
Most German citizens also rate the way in which Armin Laschet was chosen as candidate for chancellor of the Union as negative. 66 percent of those questioned would have found a process "in which the CSU would also have been involved" to be better. Only 26 percent think it is correct that the CDU executive committee alone decided on Armin Laschet's candidacy for chancellor. Most supporters of the CDU (72 percent) and the CSU (88 percent) also see this procedure as critical.
If the German citizens could vote for their chancellor directly, Annalena Baerbock would get more than twice as many votes as Armin Laschet and Olaf Scholz put together immediately after being nominated as the top candidate of the Greens.
According to the survey, Baerbock comes to 32 percent, an increase of six percentage points compared to the previous week.
For Laschet and Scholz, 15 percent would each decide - that means a loss of 4 percentage points for the CDU chief and a minus of 2 percentage points for the SPD candidate for chancellor.
In the previous week, 26 percent would have opted for Baerbock, 19 percent for Laschet and 17 percent for Scholz.
mrc
