Austria’s Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) has fallen to the mid-teens in the polls, depths the party has not seen in modern tracking, causing unrest within the ranks.
Third National Council president Doris Bures told ORF’s ZiB news programme on September 18 that at 15 per cent “every discussion is on the table, content and personnel. You cannot simply move on to the next item of business.”
Her remarks followed days of internal argument over Vice-Chancellor Andreas Babler’s leadership and put pressure on the party leader in public. They came as the SPÖ presidium and executive met in Vienna, sittings that ended without any personnel decision.
A string of recent surveys place the SPÖ well below its result at the September 2024 National Council election, when it took 21.1 per cent.
A Lazarsfeld Gesellschaft poll for oe24, published on September 10 and conducted among 2,000 respondents between August 31 and September 8, put the party at 14 per cent, marking the lowest figure in that institute’s long-running weekly series. The FPÖ stood at 39 per cent in the same wave.
The subsequent Lazarsfeld wave, published on September 17 and taken between September 7 and 15, showed 16 per cent.
OGM for Kurier, published on September 15, recorded 15 per cent.
PolitPro’s compilation of recent polls stood at 15.1 per cent on September 18.
Babler conceded the point on September 18, saying that recently measured levels of 17 per cent were “not pleasing”, while dismissing the leadership speculation as media-driven: “These discussions do not stand up to reality.”
In the same polls the right-wing Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) is first, typically on 37 to 39 per cent.
The Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) is second, on about 21 to 22 per cent.
The Greens are on about 13 per cent, NEOS on 6 to 7 per cent, and the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) on 4 per cent, at the threshold for entering parliament.
Combined, ÖVP, SPÖ and NEOS, the parties of the current three-party government, fall short of a majority on these figures. On the September 17 numbers they would hold 82 of the 183 seats in the National Council, against the 92 needed to govern and the 109 they won in 2024.
A Heute poll published on September 18 found 46 per cent of respondents in favour of early elections and 40 per cent in favour of the government serving until 2029. It was carried out by pollster Peter Hajek among 500 voters, with a margin of error of 4.4 points.
Among remaining SPÖ voters, 34 per cent favoured ending the coalition, against 60 per cent who backed staying in office.
The immediate cause of Bures’s intervention is the run of low figures and an internal presentation by trade unionist Josef “Beppo” Muchitsch, chairman of the construction and woodworkers’ union, reported by the Kronen Zeitung, which referred to a “personnel realignment”.
On September 8 Muchitsch told the social-democratic building-workers’ faction that “people are no longer listening to us. Babler is unelectable for many. Issues thus become secondary,” and listed a “personnel realignment” among the remedies.
Babler has led the party since 2023 and became vice-chancellor in the ÖVP-SPÖ-NEOS cabinet formed in March 2025, after the 2024 election. Delegates re-elected him leader in March 2026 with 81.5 per cent of the vote.
He has argued that a more left-wing course would recover voters.
The polls have not shown that recovery. The Greens and the KPÖ together now outscore the SPÖ.
Babler has also suffered a run of concrete setbacks in office. He told a party event in Linz, northern Austria, that the “only yes means yes” sexual-offences bill would go out to public consultation on August 24; the justice ministry, run by his party colleague Anna Sporrer, said that day the draft had gone only to the coalition partners.
In the same period the Federal Competition Authority warned that Babler’s planned media-delivery subsidy could distort competition. The €22.5 million scheme would pay only for subscription newspapers, and eight of the nine states filed negative submissions on it.
During his ORF summer interview on August 24 he said health insurance funds financed cosmetic surgery, a claim that was widely contradicted afterwards.
In 2024, the Socialists came in third and formed a three-party cabinet whose explicit purpose was to keep the Freedom Party out of office.
On current polling the FPÖ is first by a wide margin, the three governing parties no longer command a majority between them, and a plurality of voters say they want a new election.
Trade union federation president Wolfgang Katzian, who said he did not know the Muchitsch presentation, pointed out that the party had re-elected Babler only six months ago.
Speculation inside the party has turned to Gerhard Zeiler, a former ORF director general. In a Hajek poll for ATV taken between September 7 and 10, 43 per cent said an SPÖ led by him would be at least an option.
Austria, OGM poll:
FPÖ-PfE: 38% (+1)
ÖVP-EPP: 21% (+1)
SPÖ-S&D: 15% (-1)
GRÜNE-G/EFA: 13%
NEOS-RE: 7% (-1)
KPÖ-LEFT: 4%+/- vs. 27 April 2026 – 20 May 2026
Fieldwork: 08-10 September 2026
Sample size: 1,012➤ https://t.co/7wdXPVoSYN pic.twitter.com/N1Bbef0pyT
— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) September 16, 2026
