German election post-mortem survey

As part of a German election post-mortem exercise, Focaldata conducted a series of polls with a total of 7,162 respondents. The surveys were designed to assess why people voted how they did at the 2025 federal election, along with their hopes for the coalition government and attitudes towards government debt.

Fieldwork was conducted between 26 August and 1 September 2025.

• Majorities of voters back a more restrictive immigration policy compared to recent years, but still don’t think the grand coalition should work with the AfD.

• Germany is evenly split on attitudes towards the €100 billion allocated to achieve climate neutrality as part of negotiations on the debt brake, with 35% in support and 35% opposed.

• Defence minister Boris Pistorius is the most popular potential Chancellor candidate if Friedrich Merz steps down in the coming years, with 46% backing him from a list of four main candidates.

Please use the links below to access the full datasets:

• Nationally-representative sample (n = 5,143)

• CDU/CSU booster sample (n = 1,006)

• SPD booster sample (n = 1,013)

“Mobilization” by conceptphoto.info, CC BY 2.0