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Saturday, October 24, 2020
Forsa asked about 1007 CDU members on behalf of RTL and ntv: The majority want Friedrich Merz as the future leader of the party. The Union would have the best chance, but most believe, with another candidate.
In just under five weeks, 1001 delegates will elect a new president at the CDU party congress. If the members had a choice, the outcome would be clear. 45 percent would elect Friedrich Merz, 24 percent Armin Laschet and 13 percent Norbert Röttgen. This stems from a survey that the opinion research institute Forsa conducted on behalf of RTL and ntv among 1007 members of the CDU.
Merz would vote primarily for Christian Democrats in East Germany (54 percent), as well as those party members who classify themselves as politically correct (59 percent). Laschet has his strongest support in the North Rhine-Westphalia CDU (39 percent) and among the left-wing CDU members (44 percent). Laschet trusts 38 percent of the CDU members to integrate the different currents of the party. Merz is only 31 percent of the party as a man who can hold the wings of the CDU together.
In the view of 51 percent of CDU members, the new CDU president should also become the joint CDU-CSU chancellor candidate. 39 percent believe, however, that it would be better if the Bavarian Prime Minister and CSU President Markus Söder became the Union’s candidate for chancellor. CDU officials see it that way too, those who hold a party position or a political mandate.
Better opportunities with Söder
In the opinion of more than half of the CDU members (53 percent), the Union would have the best chance of achieving a good result in the general elections next year with a candidate for chancellor Söder. A fifth thinks that the union with Laschet or Merz as a candidate for chancellor would have the best chances. According to the CDU members, the Union would have no chance of achieving a good result with Röttgen. Even of those who would elect Merz as the new CDU president, the majority (49 percent) believe that the union with Söder has a better chance than with Merz (only 39 percent believe that).
As for the future political direction of the CDU, a clear majority (70 percent) of members would like to see Merkel’s course continued at the center. 7 percent would like liberal values to be further emphasized. Twenty-one percent believe that according to Merkel, the CDU should “emphasize more conservative values.”
Whoever the CDU party congress determines as the new president, nearly three-quarters of CDU members (71 percent) expect Health Minister Jens Spahn to “take a leading role in the CDU” in the future. . 67 percent of Christian Democrats who would elect Friedrich Merz as president are of the same opinion.
It is not yet clear how the new president will be determined. So far, there is no solution on how the CDU party congress should be conducted in the face of the increase in corona infections. Only a minority of 24 percent of CDU members believe that the delegates meeting scheduled for December 4 should be held as a “face-to-face congress” as previously planned. 8 percent of the members are in favor of postponing the party congress again as it did in the spring. 68 percent want Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer’s successor to be elected on December 4, but believe the elections should be organized differently, for example as a vote by mail.
