Spd slips to third place behind afd in survey

In a poll, the SPD has fallen behind the afd to third place in the polls. According to the insa opinion research institute, it lost half a percentage point to 16 percent, while the afd improved by half a point to 17 percent.
Flensburg mayor simone lange, who ran against andrea nahles for SPD leader in the spring, described the development as painful but predictable.
The union remains the strongest party with 28.5 percent and also a half-point gain. The greens remained at 13.5 percent. The FDP ranked at 9.5 percent (minus 0.5), the left at 10 percent (minus 0.5). In other polling institutes, the SPD was previously still just ahead of the afd.
Spd politician lange reacted with concern to the result. "Of course, it scares me," she told the deutsche presse-agentur. The result naturally hurts. "Although this was also a bit predictable. We all knew the grand coalition would put the afd in the role of opposition leader in the german bundestag."
But the SPD leadership could also use this as an opportunity, explained lange, who is also part of the left-wing rallying movement "aufstehen" around left-wing faction leader sahra wagenknecht. "Let’s then look forward together and not always that the democrats make each other’s lives difficult. Left-wingers rail against the SPD and vice versa. No one can listen to that anymore, not even me."
Lange himself had previously been criticized by the SPD leadership for his appearance with the collection movement. Spd-vice ralf stegner had called it a PR-action of a movement around wagenknecht and oskar lafontaine, "both of whom are not now known for wanting to demand that the SPD do so". In april, lange achieved a respectable success with 27.6 percent of the votes for the SPD presidency, even though she lost the vote to andrea nahles.