Around seven weeks before the federal election, the Union and its candidate for Chancellor Armin Laschet have to accept losses in a survey by the polling institute Infratest Dimap.

On the other hand, the SPD and its candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz gain significantly.

If the Bundestag election were on Sunday, the CDU / CSU would come to 27 percent according to the poll published on Thursday for the ARD “Germany trend”.

This means that the Union has lost one percentage point compared to June.

The SPD would come to 18 percent and improve by 3 percentage points.

In the direct election question, Laschet lost 8 percentage points compared to the previous month.

Laschet is 20 percent behind SPD chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz, who comes to 35 percent (+6).

Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock has therefore lost 2 percentage points compared to the previous month;

16 percent of respondents would currently choose them.

29 percent answered “don't know” or gave no answer (+4) ”.

Greens just ahead of the SPD

In the Sunday question, the Greens lost one percentage point compared to the previous month, according to the survey.

With currently 19 percent, they would still be the second strongest force - but only slightly ahead of the SPD.

The AfD loses one point to 10 percent, the FDP improves by one point to 12 percent.

The left loses a percentage point and lands at 6 percent.

When asked which party should lead the next federal government, a good third (35 percent) currently state that they prefer a Union-led federal government (-4).

Almost a quarter (24 percent) would like a cabinet led by the Social Democrats (+4);

16 percent (-3) would favor the first green-led federal government.

25 percent (+3) of those surveyed did not provide any information.

According to the survey, the majority of Germans look back on the chancellorship of Angela Merkel (CDU) as positive.

When asked whether or not Angela Merkel has been a good chancellor over the past 16 years, three quarters of German citizens (75 percent) draw a positive balance.

One in five (20 percent) said that all in all Merkel was not a good chancellor.

She will not run for election on September 26th after 16 years in office.

Election polls are generally always fraught with uncertainty.

Among other things, declining party ties and increasingly short-term voting decisions make it more difficult for opinion research institutes to weight the data collected.

For the “Germany trend”, the polling company Infratest dimap surveyed 1312 voters from Monday to Wednesday. The institute gives a statistical margin of error of two to three percentage points. In principle, surveys only reflect opinions at the time of the survey and are not predictions of the outcome of the election.