AfD reaches 30 percent in Insa survey - Union at a new low
The AfD recorded a new high in a current Insa survey, while the Union under Friedrich Merz fell to 18 percent.
Quick Look
- In a new Insa survey, the AfD achieved 30 percent nationwide, while the CDU/CSU fell to a record low of 18 percent.
- Dissatisfaction with Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the federal government remains at a high level at 79 percent.
AI-generated summary
Why It Matters
The AfD is being monitored nationwide by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a suspected case. Individual regional associations are considered to be firmly right-wing extremist.
In a new survey, the AfD reaches 30 percent nationwide for the first time. This means that the party has gained one percentage point compared to the previous week, as shown by the survey conducted by the Insa Institute for the Bild newspaper. At the same time, the CDU and CSU union loses one point and falls to a new low of just 18 percent. This puts the AfD twelve percentage points ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Union (CDU). A survey by the opinion research institute Forsa for RTL Deutschland sees the AfD at 26 percent and the Union at 19 percent.
For both the AfD and the Union, these are the highest and lowest values to date within the Insa data. Some other institutes have already measured these values for the so-called Sunday question: In mid-September, the Union was already at 18 percent at YouGov and the AfD at the same time at the GMS institute was at 30. In more recent measurements by other institutes such as Forsa, the AfD was sometimes up to four points lower, the Union up to five points higher.
Dissatisfaction with Merz and the government remains high
In the past, the Union had already ranked almost low in a survey: In October 2021, Insa found it to be 18.5 percent. In the new Insa survey, Merz's approval ratings also remain low: 79 percent of those surveyed expressed dissatisfaction with the work of the Chancellor and that of the federal government as a whole.
In the Insa survey of 1,202 respondents, the SPD (unchanged) and the Greens (minus one) are tied at 14 percent. The Left Party remains at ten percent. At four percent each, the BSW and FDP are below the five percent threshold and would not enter the Bundestag. Insa states the maximum error tolerance as plus/minus 2.9 percentage points.
Experts see increasing normalization of the AfD
The AfD is being monitored nationwide by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a suspected case. Individual state associations are classified as definitely right-wing extremist by the respective state Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
Experts explain the party's steady support with increasing core voters and normalization. "People who vote for the AfD often don't leave the party even if there is a scandal surrounding the party," says political scientist Marcel Lewandowsky, who teaches in Halle. "That's either because they don't believe the negative headlines about the AfD or because there is no other party that they feel represented by."
He sees a normalization of AfD positions “by the parties in the political center, and in some cases a rapprochement with their language, especially in migration policy.” In the end, the AfD will benefit from this because more people will be able to elect them.
Open Questions
- How are the survey results at other institutes developing?
- What impact does normalization have on voting behavior?
