As of: March 7, 2024, 1:06 p.m
By: Lisa Mahnke
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An analysis of a survey shows that Merz is not popular with voters.
Competitor Wüst, meanwhile, presents himself confidently in the TV talk “Maischberger”.
Berlin - Friedrich Merz, as CDU leader the main candidate for the Union's candidacy for chancellor, is still in the polls low.
His personality values have even worsened: Only 23 percent of those surveyed in a Forsa survey for
RTL/ntv
said they wanted to vote for Merz in a direct election.
In January it was still 28 percent in the survey series.
Another survey for
Stern
shows a weakness particularly clearly: Many women in Germany apparently have a problem with Merz - and there are also reservations among centrist voters.
“In all age groups, Merz receives significantly lower scores among women than among men,” explained Forsa boss Manfred Güllner, according to
Stern
.
The CDU leader performs particularly poorly among women between the ages of 18 and 29; only nine percent would vote for him.
In the other female age groups, the male average of 28 percent approval for Merz is never reached.
According to the survey, Merz scores highest among men aged 45 to 59, who received 29 percent approval.
It remains unclear whether other candidates could exploit this weakness.
Merz is weak in a survey among female voters – what is Wüst doing?
Hendrik Wüst, who is considered a potential alternative candidate, recently stated on the
ARD
program “Maischberger” that he would “like to be Prime Minister in North Rhine-Westphalia” - so for now there is no commitment to a possible application for the candidacy for chancellor.
At the same time, Wüst emphasized that a candidate for chancellor must also pay attention to opportunities among the electorate: “What is important is who can reach groups of voters.”
Friedrich Merz loses to Wüst in the polls - especially among women.
© IMAGO / Political Moments
Wüst fits more into the role of a bridge builder: He forms a coalition with the Greens in his state government - and against this background he also took a swipe at CSU leader Markus Söder.
Wüst knows how to present himself as a young family man and, despite internal resistance, achieved a quota of women for the top list places in the European elections.
Possible indications of a better standing among the female part of the population.
However, Merz's problem seems bigger.
According to the Forsa survey, a hypothetical direct election candidate for Chancellor Merz could only attract 52 percent of the CDU voters in the last federal election.
At 58 percent, the support among current supporters is hardly higher.
Of the CDU members, 77 percent would choose the potential CDU candidate.
It is not known how Wüst would perform: he was not yet a selection option in the last Forsa surveys.
Merz is ahead of Scholz in the survey - but is far behind Pistorius on one point
“Especially those eligible voters who see themselves in the right-wing political spectrum would choose Merz,” Güllner continued.
When respondents classified themselves into political camps along the left-right axis, 47 percent of respondents in the Forsa survey who classified themselves as right-wing and only 29 percent in the center said they would vote for Merz in a hypothetical direct election for Chancellor.
Here, too, there is a gap in the voter potential of the popular parties CDU/CSU.
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What the survey clearly shows, however, is that despite the alleged women's problem, Merz is ahead of the current incumbent Olaf Scholz (15 percent) and Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck (18 percent) in terms of chancellor preference.
It is conceivable that another SPD politician would have better chances against the CDU candidates: 51 percent of survey participants described the current SPD Defense Minister Boris Pistorius as trustworthy.
Friedrich Merz only achieved 28 percent on this point.
The ZDF
political barometer showed similar tendencies
, in which Pistorius was clearly ahead with 1.6 points (on a scale of +5 to -5).
Wüst was ranked with an average value of 0.7 points, followed by Markus Söder with 0.1 points.
Merz brought up the rear among the CDU politicians considered with minus 0.4 points.
(lismah)