If you are driving from Frankfurt in the direction of Oberursel, you will notice a lettering that cannot be overlooked: “Vote SPD!” White letters on a bright red background.

At first it is only subjective, but at the moment you get the impression that the SPD in particular was advertising in Frankfurt.

The Greens, the FDP and the Left Party are also present, the AfD posters are mostly hanging high on the light poles.

Even smaller ones like the Pirate Party and Volt are visibly represented in the city.

Martin Benninghoff

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

  • Follow I follow

But in places where thousands of people drive by every day, such as Mainzer Landstrasse near the Alte Oper, the CDU of all people makes itself scarce. The party that actually has to make up ground in the last two weeks before the federal election on September 26 if its candidate Armin Laschet wants to become Federal Chancellor. The CDU confirms the subjective impression of “red dominance” on the streets - and wants to do more to counter this.

"We recognized the problem," says Jan Schneider, the CDU chairman in Frankfurt.

This is interesting against the background of the bare figures: According to the district manager Ann-Kristin Müller, the CDU ordered and hung more posters this year than it did when it was elected four years ago.

If so: Are the SPD's strategy and campaign simply - as it stands now - more successful?

The party has reprinted

The party wants to have poster reprinted at the weekend - with professional help, as it was for the local elections, when an agency “basic poster”, as it is called, at 5,000 locations.

However, this reorder will now be lower, which is financially justified on the one hand, because the CDU district association has to save.

On the other hand, this is due to the fact that a federal election is not just a matter for the district association, but for the direct candidates and the federal party in Berlin.

In addition to the candidate posters, the poster portfolio includes thematic motifs that are attached to so-called “Wesselmann”, the large screens on green spaces, for example, and the advertising posters on the Stroer advertisements in the city.

The subtle motifs are often almost lost in the competition with the bright red of the SPD - that is again subjective.

Vandalism in the constituencies

In the federal election campaign, not only the district association, but also the direct candidates are advertising on their own.

In the case of the CDU, these are Bettina Wiesmann for the constituency 183 and Axel Kaufmann for 182. Kaufmann, who claims to have purchased 1,600 posters with his likeness, recently complained about the destruction of his posters in the constituency.

“With all understanding that an election campaign is quite rough and that emotions can also boil up during discussions,” he wrote in a press release, “one should not simply ignore the targeted continued destruction of election posters or dismiss it as a 'mimosa-like attitude' ".

There is also vandalism in the constituency of Wiesmann, as managing director Müller reports. For example, 20 CDU posters were recently destroyed in the Harheim district. "We'll see to it that we replace them as quickly as possible."