Fresh polling data released on October 19 and 20 has pointed to mounting political pressure on Friedrich Merz, as a nationwide survey by the Berlin-based institute Pollytix placed support for the CDU/CSU alliance at the lowest level it has recorded, while regional research in Bavaria indicates half of the sister party’s supporters favour a change in leadership.
According to the latest federal Sonntagsfrage (voting-intention survey) conducted by the institute, the Union bloc dropped to 18 per cent. That is one point down on its mid-September reading and the weakest score the institute has measured for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU).
The representative survey of 1,300 eligible voters, conducted on October 16-19 and published on October 20, places the Christian Democrats 11 points behind the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which leads the field at 29 per cent.
At the February 2025 federal election the Union took 28.5 per cent and the AfD 20.8 per cent.
The federal coalition partner, SPD, gained one percentage point and is now again the third strongest force with 15 per cent of the votes.
This survey means that the German Government would be voted out of office, its two parties taking 33 per cent of the vote, four points more than the AfD alone.
The Greens remain at 14 per cent, while the left-wing Die Linke dropped one percentage point to 11 per cent.
The liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) stands at 5 per cent.
Sahra Wagenknecht’s BSW loses one percentage point and stands at 4 per cent, under the national threshold of 5 per cent.
A separate YouGov survey taken over the same October 16-19 window also put the Union on 18 per cent, with the AfD on 28 per cent.
The national decline coincides with findings from a regional poll conducted in Bavaria by the Hamburg-based research institute GMS Dr. Jung on behalf of 17:30 SAT.1 Bayern.
This representative survey of 1,011 Bavarian voters, carried out on October 14-19, showed that 57 per cent of respondents across the state support an immediate resignation by Merz, while 32 per cent opposed it.
Among self-identified supporters of the CSU, 50 per cent indicated that Merz should step down, compared to 42 per cent who favoured him remaining in office.
Despite that federal verdict, the Bavarian state-level polling shows the CSU holding its ground at home.
In the hypothetical state election ballot, the CSU stood at 37 per cent, two points below its March 2026 GMS figure, but consistent with its 2023 state election outcome.
The AfD registered second in Bavaria at 22 per cent (up four points since March), followed by the Greens at 15 per cent, the Free Voters (Freie Wähler) at 10 per cent and the SPD at 6 per cent. The AfD won 14.6 per cent at the 2023 state election.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz vows to press on with his reform agenda after the CDU narrowly missed the 5% threshold to win seats in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s state parliament, taking 4.9% in the Sept. 20 election. https://t.co/g616Iesq1g
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) September 21, 2026
