The Union's hopes for the “last minute swing” have not been fulfilled.

The turnaround, which should bring the clear turn in the last few meters, did not materialize.

After four legislative terms in government, the CDU and CSU achieved the worst election result in their history in this federal election.

The Union has thus reached the level at which the SPD has been operating for more than ten years.

In the meantime, the Social Democrats have even had to experience completely different depths.

Risen from these ruins, they now believe in a future in which Olaf Scholz could become Federal Chancellor.

He would be the fourth Social Democrat in this office after Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schröder - and the one with the worst SPD result.

In the days of its predecessors, the SPD also received more than forty percent of the vote.

The Greens and the FDP decide who will be Chancellor

The Union now knows how high the chancellor's bonus is that it lost with Merkel's departure. The Chancellor had won 32.9 percent four years ago, the lowest result in the history of the Union. Before the outbreak of the pandemic, the nationwide polls for the CDU and CSU were even below thirty percent. They then rose again because many citizens were convinced that they were in good hands with the "crisis chancellor". The CDU chairman, as his personal popularity curve shows, has hardly succeeded in portraying himself as a proven crisis manager à la Merkel or Helmut Schmidt.

The SPD and the Union now derive the mandate to form the federal government from their election results.

Because they do not want to form a coalition again and there are not enough seats for a purely left-wing alliance, both Scholz and Laschet are just a pact with the Greens and the FDP.

These two parties will decide the name of the next Federal Chancellor.

Germany is facing months of coalition negotiations that have never been done before.

The Union parties would no longer be of any help if, in this situation, they did not (really) stand unanimously behind their candidate for chancellor and strengthen him as much as possible.

According to initial statements, even the CSU recognized this.