{"id":68211,"date":"2026-08-07T02:28:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T02:28:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/68211\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T02:28:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T02:28:35","slug":"germanys-hot-topic-this-summer-a-chancellor-swap-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/68211\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany\u2019s hot topic this summer: A chancellor swap \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI am firmly convinced that Friedrich Merz will remain chancellor,\u201d Markus S\u00f6der, the powerful state premier of Bavaria and CSU leader, said\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ardmediathek.de\/video\/ard-sommerinterviews-2026\/das-interview-i-markus-soeder-csu-im-ard-sommerinterview\/tagesschau24\/Y3JpZDovL3RhZ2Vzc2NoYXUuZGUvMDA3ZDcxMTYtYjAxNi00YTVlLTg0NWEtMGEyNDQ1ZDAxNjAz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">in an interview<\/a>\u00a0with public broadcaster ARD over the weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would throw the conservatives into complete disarray,\u201d S\u00f6der said of a potential swap. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cMoreover, it could even lead to new elections. And anyone who wants new elections now \u2014 in a situation like this, after such a lead-up \u2014 is only promoting one thing: bringing radicals to power. That is why my urgent advice is to focus on the work at hand and spend less time speculating behind the scenes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At national level,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/europe-poll-of-polls\/germany\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">POLITICO\u2019s Poll of Polls<\/a>\u00a0puts the AfD as the single most popular party with 28 percent support, with Merz\u2019s conservatives on 21 percent.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, only 13 percent of Germans are satisfied with Merz\u2019s performance, according to the latest benchmark ARD-DeutschlandTrend poll\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tagesschau.de\/inland\/deutschlandtrend\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">released last month<\/a>. That is the lowest rating for a sitting chancellor in the survey\u2019s nearly 30-year history.<\/p>\n<p>Merz\u2019s rock-bottom ratings reflect disappointment over his efforts to revive Germany\u2019s ailing economy and public skepticism over far-reaching pension and health care reforms that will be difficult to implement and are expected to cost the average voter money.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For now, Merz\u2019s most viable political strategy appears to be appealing to politicians\u2019\u00a0risk aversion\u00a0in an effort to preserve what remains of Germany\u2019s reputation for political stability.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can\u2019t imagine many people within the conservative camp saying: \u2018This is the solution, and we\u2019re willing to take any risk in the hope that we might then do better in the polls,\u2019\u201d said Arzheimer, the political science professor. \u201cThat would be a completely crazy idea.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI am firmly convinced that Friedrich Merz will remain chancellor,\u201d Markus S\u00f6der, the powerful state premier of Bavaria&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1607,1749,393,5,27764,939,1750,2700,21504,5210],"class_list":["post-68211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-elections","tag-far-right","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-germany","tag-hendrik-wust","tag-history","tag-olaf-scholz","tag-pensions","tag-poll","tag-stability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}