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Nearly half of German voters would support holding a snap national election if Chancellor Friedrich Merz resigned, according to a new INSA poll published on Tuesday.
Some 45% of respondents said they would favor a new vote in the event of Merz’s departure. Another 31% said the governing CDU/CSU alliance and the center-left SPD should use their parliamentary majority to elect a successor.
Pressure grows on German chancellor
Political pressure on Merz has intensified after his CDU suffered heavy losses in three state elections this month. Although the chancellor has said he will not step down and plans to continue with his reform agenda, German media speculation about his future has persisted.
Asked who should succeed Merz, 20% of those surveyed named CSU leader and Bavarian Premier Markus Soeder. North Rhine-Westphalia’s conservative Premier Hendrik Wuest was backed by 14%, while Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt received 6%.
AfD reaches record level in INSA poll
The poll put the anti-immigrant AfD at 29.5%, its highest national result in an INSA survey. Merz’s CDU/CSU alliance stood at 19.5%, creating a 10-point gap that also represented a record for the institute.
The SPD and the environmentalist Greens each recorded 13.5%, while the Left Party was on 10.5%. The liberal FDP stood at 4.5% and the left-populist BSW at 3.5%, leaving both below the 5% threshold required to enter Germany’s parliament.
The survey followed a series of setbacks for Merz’s party in state elections. The AfD won the largest share of the vote in two eastern states, the CDU failed for the first time to enter a state parliament, and the Left Party finished first in Berlin.
Merz described the result in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern as “a deep turning point” and “a severe blow”. However, he said he would remain CDU chair and chancellor, and that the federal coalition with the SPD would continue.
