The SPD regains strength and is in second position before the German elections

Angela Merkel, right, and German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz arrive at the weekly cabinet meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin.Michael Sohn / AP

When Olaf Scholz was appointed Social Democratic candidate (SPD) for the September 26 elections, the party leadership entrusted him with an almost impossible task: to bring back to power in Berlin a historic formation that had not raised its head since 2017, when it registered with 20.5% their worst result in a generals since World War II. Just a few weeks ago, the SPD languished around 15% in the polls, but the campaign focused on the figure of the candidate, who is also Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor in the coalition Executive led by Angela Merkel, seems to have worked, united to the mistakes of his opponents. Without great charisma, but with an image of solidity, professionalism and seriousness, the aspiring chancellor, and with him the SPD, have set out on the road to recovery,as shown by a poll published this Wednesday that places the Social Democrats ahead of the Greens and brings them closer to Merkel's CDU.

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The survey, carried out by the Forsa demographic institute between August 10 and 16 and disseminated by the RTL / NTV media group, the SPD has gained two points compared to last week and is already placed with 21% in second place, ahead of Los Verdes, who lost one point to 19%. The survey also shows that the Union - as the bloc formed by the CDU and its brother party in Bavaria, the CSU is known - remains unchanged at 23%, but reached a 30% vote intention at the end of June. In addition, Scholz remains at the head of the voters' preference if the chancellor were directly elected - which is not the case because the vote goes to one party -, with 29% compared to 15% for environmentalist Annalena Baerbock and 12 % of the conservative and successor to Chancellor Armin Laschet.The green candidate has suffered several setbacks that have damaged her image - in relation to plagiarized passages in a book launched in the campaign, among other issues - while the Christian Democrat Laschet has lost points with the serious floods that devastated western Germany in July.

The latest data show the smallest difference between the two large traditional parties - Democrats and Social Democrats - since March 2017 and reopen the prospects of possible coalitions after the elections next September. Until now, the numbers gave greater probabilities to a coalition of conservatives and ecologists, but the SPD once again makes its way into the pools as a significant player in possible agreements, in which the Liberal Party (FDP) also wants to play a leading role as a minor partner. . The SPD reluctantly entered the coalition with Merkel after the 2017 elections, but the two parties are back in the lead.

After 16 years at the helm of the first economy in Europe, Angela Merkel will cease to be chancellor after the elections and the one chosen as the successor in the party and candidate to lead the Government, descends in the polls. Valuations of Laschet, who is currently also prime minister of Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia (18 million inhabitants), have fallen since he was filmed and photographed laughing with fellow party members as the country's president, Frank -Walter Steinmeier, expressed before the media in the foreground his condolences for the victims of the floods. Laschet apologized for the blunder.

According to the Forsa poll, the Liberal party (FDP) remains unchanged at 12%, as does La Izquierda with 6% and the AfD ultras with 10%.

According to the result of the survey, at this time the CDU / CSU and the SPD could mathematically aspire to the chancellery, but not the Greens.

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The Forsa poll also reveals a worrying fact for the CDU: The Union would theoretically have a better chance with Markus Söder, the current head of the CSU and the Bavarian Government, who never tires of criticizing the campaign carried out by Armin Laschet and was his opponent for the conservative candidacy.

Only 15% of voters are convinced that the CDU / CSU can turn around its recent poor poll results in the remainder of the electoral race.

33% even expect the Union's position to deteriorate further;

Worse still, among CDU / CSU supporters only a quarter (26%) believe Laschet will be able to reverse the trend between now and September 26.

A quarter of voters who would currently vote for a party other than the CDU / CSU stated that they would opt for Söder if their ballot was for the Conservatives.

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