The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) has maintained a five-point lead over the conservative bloc in the latest Deutschlandtrend poll for public broadcaster ARD, with the coalition parties losing some ground, according to the survey by polling institute Infratest dimap.
The conservative bloc - made up of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) - stands at 22% in the poll, down one percentage point, again finishing second behind the AfD, which is unchanged at 27%.
The centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) lost one point to stand at 12%. The Greens (15%) and The Left party (11%) each gained one point.
The pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) remained at 4%, which would mean the party would again fail to clear the threshold for entry into the Bundestag, Germany's lower house of parliament.
Infratest dimap surveyed 1,317 eligible voters aged 18 and over from Monday to Wednesday of this week - and therefore before the announcement of the coalition's reform plans. The poll is described as representative. The institute puts the margin of error at two to three percentage points.
Opinion polls are subject to uncertainty in general. Weakening party loyalties and increasingly last-minute voting decisions make it harder for polling institutes to weight the data they collect. Polls fundamentally reflect only the state of opinion at the time of the survey and are not forecasts of election outcomes.
