AfD tops another poll as support for German governing parties slips

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has already topped several recent opinion polls, has now also emerged as the strongest political force in a survey released on Friday by the German public broadcaster ZDF.

In a hypothetical federal election held next Sunday, Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservative bloc would win 25% of the vote, down one percentage point from late March. The AfD is unchanged at 26%, maintaining a narrow lead.

Support for the Social Democrats (SPD) has slipped one point to 12%, its lowest level in the ZDF survey conducted by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen. At that level, a coalition between the conservatives and the SPD — the current federal governing arrangement — would no longer command a parliamentary majority.

The Greens are seen at 14%, while The Left stands at 11%. The pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), which had not been separately reported in recent months due to such low support, stands at 3%.

The survey was conducted between April 14 and 16 among 1,355 eligible voters.

Forschungsgruppe Wahlen is not the first institute to put the AfD ahead of the conservative bloc. Recent polls by YouGov, INSA and Forsa also rank the anti-immigrant, eurosceptic party as the leading force.

The widest margin appears in the latest YouGov poll, which shows the AfD at 27%, compared with 23% for the conservative CDU/CSU bloc.