Support for Merz plunges after CDU’s losses to Germany’s right and left

Stuttgart, Germany – Minutes after the results of the first exit polls flashed across German screens, Chancellor Friedrich Merz of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) declared in a televised statement at the party’s headquarters that he was going nowhere. “It’s a disaster,” he said of the state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on September 20. “What needs to be done now requires backbone, steadfastness and patience. I will muster them – as party chairman of the CDU and, above all, as chancellor of our country.” On Thursday, a survey by Germany’s public broadcaster ARD found that only one in 10 respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with his work.