Markus Söder beats Friedrich Merz in candidate comparison 5:1

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Markus Söder is everywhere – at the fire department in Augsburg, the cowboy club in Munich or at the World Championships for German Shepherds in Nuremberg. He is always posting something about it on Instagram. There is also the terribly beautiful series “Söder eats”: smoked salmon with baked potatoes, shashlik with chips or a plain kebab. And he also shows off his collection of Star Wars mugs – from the little Jedi Grogu to the evil Darth Vader.

Markus Söder is considered to be a particularly strong leader

The constant presence, the ostentatious closeness to the people and the human details – is the CSU leader’s calculation working? Shortly before the decision on the Union’s candidate for chancellor, the numbers are clearly in favour of Markus Söder. This shows the current profile of characteristics that the star at irregular intervals for top politicians. 63 percent of Germans consider the Bavarian Prime Minister to be a strong leader; 65 percent think that he speaks clearly. Compared to his competitor Friedrich Merz, Söder is ahead in five of six categories. The lead is particularly large when asked whether the politician knows what moves people. 49 percent say this about Söder, but only 33 percent about Merz.

34 percent like the CSU leader. Merz scores ten percentage points worse on this question. 32 percent say the Bavarian Prime Minister is trustworthy, while the Union faction leader scores 30 percent. Only on the question of competence does the CDU leader have a razor-thin lead of one percent: 47 percent think Merz is competent, while his competitor for the candidacy for chancellor is rated at 46 percent.

Söder receives mostly good ratings across the supporters of all parties – including from voters of the AfD and the Sahra Wagenknecht coalition. The CSU leader achieved his best rating among his own supporters in the question of leadership strength. They attribute 75 percent of their votes to him – five percentage points more than Merz. Only the Green voters are particularly skeptical on one point: only 11 percent consider the CSU leader, who strictly rules out a black-green coalition, to be trustworthy.

In comparison to September 2023, despite all his efforts, Söder has not been able to improve his image any further. Although he invests a lot of effort and time in popular events and his appearance on social media channels, his popularity remains unchanged. 34 percent is enough to beat Friedrich Merz. However, 49 percent of Germans find the SPD’s reserve candidate for chancellor, Boris Pistorius, sympathetic – although (or because?) his Instagram account only has state-supporting images to offer.

The data was collected by the market and opinion research institute forsa for the star and RTL Deutschland between September 12th and 13th, 2024 by telephone. This makes the survey representative. Data basis: 1009 respondents. Statistical error tolerance: +/- 3 percentage points. The comparative values ​​for Friedrich Merz come from a survey on August 29th and 30th.