The dire favorability scores reflect dissatisfaction with a government increasingly defined by missteps and internal strain. Merz’s hardline turn on migration — including this week’s proposal that up to 80 percent of Syrian refugees leave Germany — has triggered backlash from his own coalition. His efforts to strike deals with the Taliban to deport migrants to Afghanistan, and the imposition of tighter border controls, have also been widely criticized.
Merz, a former businessman, is also failing to win over voters with his economic agenda. He came to power promising to modernize Germany and kickstart growth with a €500 billion spending plan, but reforms have moved slower than expected, and unemployment has climbed to 6.6 percent — the highest level in more than a decade.
The political consequences of the discontent are already evident. The CDU suffered a stinging defeat in regional elections in Baden-Württemberg in early March, and the far-right Alternative for Germany is now neck-and-neck with Merz’s conservatives in national polls.
The one consolation the chancellor can take from the polling results is that his party is doing a bit better than its center-left coalition partner. A mere 13 percent of Germans approve of the SPD, and only 18 percent back the party’s co-leader, Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil.
The low favorability scores reflect the SPD’s heavy losses in the Baden-Württemberg vote, where the party was backed by just 5.5 percent of voters, and its defeat in Rhineland-Palatinate after 35 years in power.
The polling numbers bode badly for both the SPD and the CDU ahead of two key regional elections in Eastern Germany, where the AfD is leading in polls. Pressure is growing on the chancellor to steady a government that appears to have already lost the confidence of Germany’s electorate.
Nette Nöstlinger contributed reporting from Berlin.