German Far-Right Party Overtakes Chancellor Scholz’s Social Democrats in Poll

(Bloomberg) -- The far-right AfD leapfrogged Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats to rank as Germany’s no. 2 party in a Forsa poll for broadcaster RTL for the first time.

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The AfD had the support of 19% of those surveyed, up two percentage points from a week earlier, with the SPD stuck on 18%, RTL said. The conservative CDU/CSU alliance dropped one point to 29%, the Greens remained on 14% and the FDP on 7%. Forsa interviewed 2,504 people between June 6 and June 12.

The AfD’s rise in recent months has been fueled by discontent among citizens over issues ranging from record immigration, persistently high inflation and costly climate protection measures.

The party questions the impact humans have on global warming and wants to stop more foreigners from coming to Germany. It has exploited infighting in Scholz’s ruling coalition of his center-left SPD, the environmentalist Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats.

SPD Defense Minister Boris Pistorius is still by far the most popular politician, according to a separate Forsa poll of 1,507 people conducted June 7-9, with an approval rating of 59, up three points compared with April.

Scholz’s rating fell two points to 40, while Economy Minister Robert Habeck declined six points to 34. The Greens vice chancellor has been the target of much of the criticism of government climate policy in recent weeks.

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, also of the Greens, lost two points to 38, while Finance Minister Christian Lindner, who leads the Free Democrats, slipped by the same amount to 34, level with Habeck.

--With assistance from Chris Reiter.

(Updates with additional approval ratings in final paragraph. A previous version was corrected to clarify that it’s the first time the AfD has overtaken the SPD in the Forsa poll.)

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