Germany’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD) have moved ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) in an opinion poll by the Emnid institute for the first time since 2006, Bild am Sonntag newspaper said.
The SPD’s unexpected surge of some 12 points in the last month has caught Merkel and her conservatives off guard, analysts said, just seven months before the Sept. 24 election, where she had expected to win a fourth term easily.
The Emnid poll of 1,885 voters gave the SPD 33 percent of the vote, up 1 point in the last week, while the Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) would win 32 percent, down 1 point.
The SPD has now gained a record-breaking 12 points in the last four weeks, according to Bild am Sonntag newspaper, since former European Parliament president Martin Schulz was named as its candidate to run against Merkel in the Sept. 24 election.