Federal election 2025: frightening survey trends for parties!

Federal election 2025: frightening survey trends for parties!

The political waves in Germany are currently running high, and the poll numbers for the upcoming federal election are providing plenty of topics to talk about. According to the latest surveys by Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland, the political landscape is in flux. While the Social Democrats (SPD) were initially the strongest force after the 2021 election, the Union has now regained the upper hand. This turnaround is also reflected in the poll numbers, which are continually adjusted to stay close to the actual vote.

A look at the Greens shows that their former heyday is already a thing of the past. The same applies to the FDP, which is stumbling in the latest surveys with a result of less than 5 percent and could therefore fail to meet the hurdle for the 2025 federal election. On the other hand, the AfD can benefit from the traffic light parties' losses and has even developed into the second strongest force. But appearances are deceptive, because at the beginning of 2024 the AfD lost a few percentage points. The still young BSW party, led by Sahra Wagenknecht, also remains below the 5 percent mark.

How are the survey values ​​created?

Surveys in Germany offer a multifaceted picture that is characterized by different survey methods. The most common methods include telephone surveys, face-to-face surveys and internet-based panels. Institutes such as Forsa and Infratest dimap use a variety of approaches to record voters' opinions. Individual survey data is weighted to ensure a representative sample of society. This means that factors such as gender, age and education are taken into account in the evaluation, as wahlrecht.de describes.

However, the quality of these surveys is not without controversy. Experts like Thomas Wind emphasize that the willingness to participate has fallen - from 30 percent 20 years ago to less than 10 percent today. This could jeopardize the representativeness of the results. Nevertheless, surveys remain relatively precise over the years, as an analysis shows: the average deviation was only 1.74 percentage points, according to a fact check by DW.

Survey dynamics and political uncertainties

The political situation is dynamic and political uncertainties add to the complexity of the polls. Experts at the Political Science Institute point out that no significant increase in errors in surveys was observed between 2000 and 2020, despite the greatly changed political landscape. However, uncertainty has increased, partly due to the rise of the AfD and the fragmentation of the political landscape.

Overall, the current surveys clearly show that we are in an exciting phase of political opinion formation. It remains to be seen how the numbers will develop until the federal election in 2025. The political actors are challenged and the voters have the final say. One thing is certain: it will certainly be exciting to see how voters cast their votes and what tips come up.