Germany’s election his to lose — and he trails
FRANKFURT AN DER ODER, Germany — His party is the biggest in Germany. It has won all but three elections since 1950, including the past four. Its departing chancellor is more popular than any politician in the country. And German voters crave stability and continuity.
Armin Laschet, the conservative Christian Democratic Union party’s candidate for chancellor, should be riding high. The race to replace Angela Merkel was his to lose.
So far, he appears to be doing just that.
Weeks before Germans vote on Sept. 26 in their most important election in a generation — one that will produce a chancellor who is not Merkel for the first time in 16 years — Laschet is sinking, and he is pulling his party down with him.
The race is still close enough, and Germany’s coalition politics so unpredictable, that it would be dangerous to dismiss the conservative candidate. But after recent polls showed Laschet’s party dropping to record lows — of 20% to 22% support — his position is so dire that even some Christian Democrats have wondered aloud whether they picked the wrong candidate.
Laschet’s campaign has prompted queasiness among conservatives who fear they could be seeing a weakness in the party’s appeal that has been disguised for years by Merkel’s own popularity and is now exacerbated by her inability to groom a replacement.
In 2018, she announced her personally chosen successor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a moderate centrist. But even with Merkel’s support, Kramp-Karrenbauer had trouble stepping out of the chancellor’s shadow and building her own base. She
quit in 2020 as leader of the conservatives, leaving the door open for Laschet.
Laschet had long boasted that if he could run Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, where he has been governor since 2017, he could run the country. But then extraordinary flooding this summer called even that credential into question, exposing flaws in his environmental policies and disaster management.
“The biggest problem for Laschet is that he has not been able to convince voters that he can do the job like Merkel,” said Julia Reuschenbach, a political scientist at the University of Bonn.
She cited images of him laughing as the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, made a somber speech after devastating flash floods that killed 180 people, and posing before a mound of trash to make a statement of his own.
“He comes across as uncertain, flippant and unprofessional,” Reuschenbach said.
In recent weeks, Laschet has seen his popularity drop below that of his Social Democratic rival, Olaf Scholz, while support for Laschet’s party has been in a free fall since late July.
The situation is so dire that Merkel, who had said she wanted to stay out of the race, is now intervening and trying to rally voters for Laschet.
“Let’s be honest: It is tight. It will be very tight in the coming weeks,” Markus Söder, the head of the conservatives’ Bavarian branch, the Christian Social Union, and an erstwhile rival, said at an election rally on Aug. 20 that was meant to propel Laschet’s campaign into a final, intense stretch. “It is no longer a question of how we could govern, but possibly of whether.”
Söder openly challenged Laschet this year for the
chance to succeed the chancellor, and he still enjoys a higher individual popularity rating among Germans than Laschet.
Germans elect parties, not a chancellor candidate. But over the course of Merkel’s four terms in office, her party has enjoyed the so-called chancellor bonus, meaning the willingness of voters to effectively cast a ballot for consistency.
Although Merkel remains Germany’s most popular politician, her recent attempts to drum up support for Laschet have failed to turn his fortunes around, partly because they have appeared last-minute and halfhearted.
Instead, Scholz now appears to be reaping the incumbent benefit, playing up his closeness to Merkel to become the second most popular politician in the country.
“Even conservative voters tend to approve of Mr. Scholz,” said Ursula Münch,
the director of the Academy for Political Education in Tützing.
Yet Laschet is known for comebacks, for surviving blunders — including making up grades for exam papers when he was lecturing — and for his ability to turn around a sagging campaign in the final stretch.
In the weeks before the 2017 vote in North Rhine-Westphalia, he focused on the need to increase security against a backdrop of record breakins, to better integrate migrants and to reposition the state’s industry to focus on the future. The strategy worked and he defeated the incumbent Social Democratic governor, whom he had trailed in the polls for most of the race.
Among Laschet’s influences is his faith. At a time when more and more Germans are quitting the Roman Catholic Church, Laschet is a proud member. “I am not someone who uses
Bible verses in my politics,” he said. “But of course it has influenced me.” And Merkel has praised his Christianity as a guiding moral compass.
Another influence for Laschet is Aachen, Germany’s westernmost city, where he was born and raised. Growing up in a place with deep ties to Belgium and the Netherlands, Laschet has been integrated into the larger European ideal all of his life. He still maintains a home in Aachen with his wife, Susanne, whom he met through their church choir and youth group. Together they have three grown children, including Joe Laschet, a social media influencer and fashionista for classic menswear.
This January, Laschet fought to become the leader of the Christian Democrats, beating Söder, who remains a more popular politician with many Germans, but whether Laschet can save himself remains to be seen.
He has had some successes, including a feisty appearance in the first televised debate and deftly dealing with an angry vaccination opponent who stormed the stage at a campaign stop. Laschet has also assembled a team of experts, including former rivals, like Friedrich Merz, who is well liked among the party’s conservative wing, in an effort to show his bridge-building skills.
But none of these things have made a dent in the widening gap with the Social Democrats.
At a campaign stop in Frankfurt an der Oder, a woman wielding a cellphone pushed her way toward the candidate as he stood on a bridge overlooking the Polish border, making a statement to reporters about Germany’s role in Europe.
Asked if she intended to vote for Laschet, she demurred. “I don’t know yet who I will vote for,” said the woman, Elisabeth Pillep, 44. “But I don’t think it will
be him.”