Six percent ahead of the CDU and CSU: AfD expands lead over Union in YouGov survey

The Forsa Institute sees less movement – but only in the narrower period since last week: In the RTL/ntv trend barometer, the AfD remains at 27 percent and the Union at 22 percent.

The SPD is on par with the Greens at 13 percent on YouGov, and behind the Greens on 15 percent at Forsa with 12 percent. The Left has 11 percent each. In the theoretical case of a current election, the FDP and BSW would still not be represented in the Bundestag.

Friedrich Merz continues to lose approval

Evaluate the work of Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz 15 percent of respondents in the YouGov survey as well – and therefore five percentage points less than in April. The decline is particularly strong among supporters of the CDU/CSU and the SPD. A clear majority of all respondents (81 percent) consider the Chancellor’s work to be bad, six points more than in the previous month. Merz achieved similar satisfaction ratings in the Forsa survey. According to this, 14 percent are satisfied with their work – 84 percent of those surveyed are not.

All other parties represented in the Bundestag are currently ruling out a coalition with the AfD. According to the YouGov survey, support for the so-called firewall is declining among citizens. Accordingly, 46 percent consider the exclusion of a coalition to be correct; in February 2025 it was still 54 percent. In the current survey, 41 percent find the exclusion wrong – a year ago it was 37 percent. 13 percent are currently undecided (2025: 9 percent).

Election surveys are generally always subject to uncertainty. Among other things, weakening party ties and increasingly short-term voting decisions make it more difficult for opinion research institutes to weight the data collected.

YouGov surveyed a total of 2,179 people aged 18 and over who live in Germany between May 8th and 11th. The Sunday question surveyed the voting intentions of 1,783 respondents. The institute specifies a statistical error tolerance of between 2.1 and 0.92 percentage points, depending on the size of the shares.

Forsa surveyed 2,501 people from May 5th to 11th. According to the institute, the representative results have a statistical error tolerance of 2.5 percentage points.