Merkel's Re-Election Race Tightens in German Forecasting Model
- Berlin researchers mine six decades of historical voting data
- Chancellor’s 9-point lead over SPD is smaller than in polls
Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, speaks in Buenos Aires on June 8, 2017.
Photographer: Sarah Pabst/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party faces a tighter national election in September than polls suggest, according to a forecasting model that mines historical data rather than voter surveys.
Polls that point to a blowout for Merkel’s Christian Democratic-led bloc “will converge back to fundamentals,” said Mark Kayser, a professor of applied methods and comparative politics at the Berlin-based Hertie School of Governance. He co-authored the model, which still forecasts that Merkel will win by 9 percentage points.