New Political Poll Data

Public-run Channel One (ARD) ran some polling data and did the 18-month out projection of the national election in the fall of 2017.

It's not a very happy situation.

AfD, the anti-immigration party.....is holding firm at 13-percent.  The SPD sits at 22-percent....mostly shaking their heads over public sentiment and lack of enthusiasm for their message.  The CDU? They are happy to some degree with 34-percent of the potential vote.

The three remaining parties site in lesser positions: FDP at 7-percent (better than what they got in 2013), the Linke Party at 8-percent (losing more votes), and the Greens at 12-percent (they rarely go higher or lower these days).

There are at least twenty-odd things which could occur over the next 15 months to make the situation alarming for the CDU or SDP: (1) some terrorist action on German soil, (2) one million immigrants arrive in 2016 and the same for 2017, (3) scandals, (4) increase in disgruntled voters wanting Merkel to retire, or (5) an awakening that the EU-Turkey deal was more of a free gift to Turkey and didn't do anything to help alleviate the immigrant crisis in Germany.

The poll that would worry the news media?  If you get to some point where the SPD slips below 20-percent, and the CDU slips below 27-percent....it can only mean that the AfD and it's anti-immigration strategy will likely be sitting at 20-percent of the national vote.

This 20-percent case.....makes for an interesting situation because of the coalition required to run the government.  Imagine the CDU having to build a 50-percent or better coalition....with the Greens and the SPD.  They would be forming the weakest form of government that Germany has had since the late 1920s.

Four years of weak CDU-SPD-Green leadership?  It could lay down the framework, with continued immigration woes....for a 2021 election where the AfD would take 30-percent of the vote.

You just look at the mess in progress and wonder why someone doesn't do a Einstein moment and realize the necessity of change.