In the first week of March, the traffic light parties are stuck in the polls, especially the FDP. The Union, on the other hand, can defend its value of more than 31 percent approval. There is more movement in the chancellor preference.

CDU and CSU can defend their highest approval rating since the beginning of the legislative period: As in the previous week, the Union is in the RTL / ntv trend barometer at 31 percent approval. The sister parties are thus implementing the goal of the CDU chairman Friedrich Merz that the traffic light parties cannot forge an alliance against the Union. The governing coalition comes to only 42 percent. The result of the Sunday question is particularly painful for the FDP, which was kicked out of the Berlin House of Representatives in February: it continues to rank at a 5 percent threat to its existence.

The SPD is at 20 percent, closely followed by the Greens at 17 percent. At 13 percent, the AfD is stable, one percentage point below its highest level since the federal election, which it reached in October. Like the FDP, the Left is starving at 5 percent approval. 9 percent of respondents said they would vote for one of the other parties.

There was also little movement in the attribution of political competence. As in the previous week, the CDU reached the highest level with 14 percent approval, followed by the SPD with 13 percent and the Greens with 11 percent. The FDP doubled its previous week’s value to two percent on this question. 5 percent of those surveyed consider another party to be politically competent, 55 percent no party at all.

If the Federal Chancellor were elected directly, Scholz would get 25 percent in a trill with Friedrich Merz and Robert Habeck, the CDU leader would get 20 percent and the Green Economics Minister would get 19 percent. If his party sent Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock into the race for chancellorship instead of Vice Chancellor, Scholz would even get 28 percent, Merz 23 percent and Baerbock 19 percent of the votes. In the previous week, Scholz had scored 2 more points in both scenarios.

The data was collected by the market and opinion research institute Forsa on behalf of RTL Germany from February 28 to March 6, 2023. Database: 2504 respondents. Statistical error tolerance: plus/minus 2.5 percentage points.

More information about Forsa here

Forsa surveys commissioned by RTL Germany