Berlin’s election has become a genuine three-way race: Linke 20, CDU 19, AfD 18
This morning’s new Civey poll is materially different from the ZDF poll in yesterday’s brief. Linke remains narrowly first on 20%, but CDU is on 19% and AfD is now only two points behind on 18%.
| Party | Poll |
|---|---|
| Die Linke | 20% |
| CDU | 19% |
| AfD | 18% |
| Greens | 16% |
| SPD | 13% |
| BSW | 4% |
| FDP | 3% |
There is an important timing caveat: the 3,000-person survey ran from August 27 to September 10, meaning most responses predate both the Steffen Krach investigation and the Saxony-Anhalt election. So it is not evidence that the SPD has recovered from Krach or that the AfD received a post-Saxony-Anhalt bump.
The coalition arithmetic is clearer than the winner. Neither CDU-SPD nor any other two-party combination has a plausible majority. With everyone ruling out AfD and CDU ruling out Linke, Tagesspiegel identifies essentially two viable governments: CDU-Green-SPD or Linke-Green-SPD.
Berlin’s September 20 election is now less a contest between two blocs than a three-way race whose eventual government will probably still depend on a deeply weakened SPD.