Germany’s far-right AfD tops poll ahead of Merz’s conservatives

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) came ahead of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives in a new opinion poll on Saturday.

Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), lost a percentage point to 25% in the INSA poll in the Sunday edition of the Bild newspaper.

The AfD, Germany’s largest opposition party, was unchanged from last week’s survey, with 26 percent. The anti-immigrant party is under investigation by national intelligence services for its extremist views, but it rose to second place in the 2025 legislative elections.

In third place are Merz’s center-left coalition partners in the Social Democratic Party (SPD), down one point to 13 percent.

The opposition Greens and Left also remained unchanged, at 12% and 11% respectively.

The margin of error was 2.9 percentage points, with 1,199 respondents participating in the survey.