The lesbian leader of the AfD, Alice Weidel, is, according to an INSA poll commissioned for the Bild newspaper, the most popular politician in Germany. In the popularity check of the 20 most prominent politicians, she placed fifth — the best among the nine women polled. The 46-year-old scored 3.8 out of 10 possible points.
Most popular politician is the SPD’s defense minister Boris Pistorius (5.1 points), who was clearly ahead of CSU chief Markus Söder and North Rhine-Westphalia’s premier Hendrik Wüst (CDU), who both earned 4.1 points. In fourth place came Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU).
Among the other women, Bundestag President Julia Klöckner fared best with seventh place. The CDU politician had this year, in particular, made headlines with her fight against the rainbow flag (TheColu.mn reported). BSW chief Sahra Wagenknecht sits at tenth, SPD chief Bärbel Bas at twelfth, Linke chief Heidi Reichinnek thirteenth and Federal Minister of Economic Affairs Katharina Reiche (CDU) fourteenth. The least popular politician is Green parliamentary group leader Katharina Dröge at seventeenth.
At the very bottom of the rankings is openly gay Christian Democrat and Union parliamentary group leader Jens Spahn, with a clear margin (3.0 out of 10). This spared Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) from embarrassment, as he only managed to come in nineteenth.
The AfD Celebrates Poll With SA Slogan
The popularity of Weidel is already being celebrated by her party on social media platforms. Thus, her fellow Bundestag member Martin Reichardt wrote on Facebook: “That’s no surprise! Alice for Germany!” He was referencing the slogan “Everything for Germany,” used during the Nazi era by the Sturmabteilung (SA), the paramilitary fighting organization of the NSDAP.
The SA, by the way, was also led by a homosexual person, Ernst Röhm. The openly gay SA chief was murdered a year after the Nazis came to power by his party “friends.”
Other Results From Other Research Institutes
The INSA poll stands out because elsewhere Alice Weidel’s popularity is assessed much lower. In the survey published a week ago by the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen on the ten most important politicians, Alice Weidel still finished dead last. The AfD politician lagged far behind Bärbel Bas, Katharina Reiche and Sahra Wagenknecht in the ZDF-commissioned poll. In the December FORSA poll, Weidel managed to reach 18th place out of 20 politicians — narrowly ahead of Wagenknecht, but well behind other female politicians like Bas or Heidi Reichinnek.
The polling institute INSA is often criticized for its polls, in which the AfD tends to perform better than in polls by other institutes. The reason may not be manipulation; rather, the differences could lie in the different survey methods. For example, the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen conducts telephone interviews on landlines or mobile and uses a random sample. INSA, by contrast, collects its results with an online panel, surveying people who have voluntarily registered. Here, disproportionately many politically active individuals could be registered, potentially influenced by the AfD’s strong online presence. The Forschungsgruppe Wahlen is, according to PolitPro, somewhat closer to the real final result in elections, but — unlike the poll of the most popular politicians — it is still close. (dk)
