BERLIN (DPA, CONVERSEER) – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative bloc has drawn level with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) for the first time in months in a new survey conducted by the INSA research institute.
If a federal election were held this Sunday, 26% of respondents said they would vote for Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), or its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU), according to the survey conducted for the Bild newspaper and released on Saturday.
The AfD has also been polling at 26% for weeks, previously placing it ahead of the governing coalition parties. The CDU/CSU was last level with the AfD in an INSA poll in September 2025.
Merz’s junior coalition partner, the Social Democrats (SPD), also gained one percentage point, reaching 16% – the party’s highest level since June 2025.
Among opposition parties, the Greens remained at 11%, while The Left held steady at 10%. Two smaller parties, the BSW and the Free Democrats (FDP) polled at 4% and 3%, respectively, below the 5% threshold typically required to enter parliament.
The INSA survey was conducted between January 26 and 30 among 1,204 eligible voters in Germany and has a maximum statistical margin of error of around 2.9 percentage points.
While the results show an improvement for the governing parties, election polls are generally subject to uncertainty, as declining party loyalty and increasingly short-term voting decisions make it difficult for pollsters to weight the data.
Polls therefore reflect the opinion at the time of the survey and should not be considered predictions of possible election outcomes.
