A New Front Opens Up Against Merkel’s Re-Election Bid
- Campaign shifts from ‘obsession’ with populism: Teneo’s Nickel
- Chancellor’s main challenger sustains initial poll bounce
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Just as Angela Merkel gears up to campaign against populist foes, Germany’s Social Democrats are opening a different front against her re-election bid.
Within a week of nominating Martin Schulz as its lead candidate in the Sept. 24 national vote, the political outsider has given the country’s second-biggest party a clear bump in the polls. That’s shifting the race’s momentum after a year dominated by the surge of the smaller, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany in the wake of Europe’s refugee crisis.