The insurgent Alternative for Germany (AfD) party’s lead over the governing party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz has grown to a record gap, as the Berlin establishment continues to suffer amid persistent economic woes.
According to the latest poll from Insa, the AfD’s support climbed to 29 per cent, up half a percentage point from the previous week. Meanwhile, the governing centre-right Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) in Bavaria fell by another full point to 20.5 per cent.
This means the gap now stands at 8.5 per cent, the largest lead ever recorded by the polling firm for the upstart anti-mass-migration party, Die Welt reported.
Meanwhile, the CDU’s leftist coalition partner, the Social Democrats, improved slightly to just 13 per cent, putting them on par with the Greens and just ahead of Die Linke (The Left), the descendant party of the former communist government of East Germany, at 10.5 per cent.
Thus, the “Red and Black” coalition between the left and right-wing establishment parties combined stands at 33.5 per cent, a decline of nearly 12 points since the last election in 2025 and just over four points over the AfD by itself.
As is often the case with so-called conservative political parties in Europe, Merz and his “Union” chose to partner with the election-losing leftist Social Democrats rather than align with the right-wing AfD party, which it considers outside the realm of political acceptability due to its strident anti-migration stances and Eurosceptic attitude towards Brussels.
However, the collusion between the two traditional parties of government to enact a “firewall” to prevent the AfD from gaining power has seemingly backfired, with current trends indicating that the populist party may overtake the collective support of the CDU and SPD, which could potentially force the Chancellor to make a deal with the far-left to remain in power.
The government’s plunging popularity has also coincided with the German public turning against Chancellor Merz. According to the weekly RTL/ntv trend barometer, just 14 per cent of voters are satisfied with their leader, compared to 85 per cent who are dissatisfied with Merz, a record high.
The government’s popularity struggles have primarily come as a result of the continued economic struggles facing the once production powerhouse of the European Union, which has slumped since the lockdowns during the Chinese coronavirus, and which was particularly hard hit by the cut off of cheap pipeline gas and oil from Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Disastrously, the reduction in Russian energy came amid the fulfilment of the phaseout of nuclear energy initiated by Merz’s predecessor, former Chancellor Angela Merkel, a devotee of the green agenda who claimed to have been concerned about nuclear power safety following the Fukushima accident in 2011.
Nevertheless, soaring energy prices have increasingly made it difficult for Germany’s manufacturing sector to compete effectively on the world stage.
The German economy has also been hit hard by the tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump on the EU. A survey conducted by Munich’s Ifo Institute found that six in ten German companies have felt negative impacts of the American tariffs, rising to 74 per cent among the critical auto industry in the country.
While most businesses have responded to the tariffs by raising prices — thereby hindering their competitiveness — at least one in four companies polled said they have been forced to absorb the cost themselves.