I looked up Friedrich Merz, hoping I would find that his wife's name was Ethel. Not so, but a fun thought...
"...recent elections saw the conservatives lose support to both the populist Alternative for Germany on the far right and the Greens on the left."
Is that correct?
My sense was that the CDU/CSU lost ground to the AfD, but that it was the SPD that lost ground to the Greens.
I would be interested in any definitive research/polling on this.
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@John
You are right: The CDU/CSU have only lost 30.000 votes to the Greens in the federal elections 2017. This is more or less nothing compared with the 980.000 votes they lost to the right-wing AfD. SPD has lost 400.000 to the Greens. But, on the other hand, a politician like the Minister President of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, for example, is widely see and appreciated as a green conservative, and there are quite a number of politicians of this type within the Green party who really appeal to the so-called „Wertkonservative“ (value conservatives) among former CDU-voters. So in the future the greens might be to some extend a threat or rather a prospective partner for the CDU.
@Christiane
Thanks for the detailed explanation/confirmation, and the insights on Herr Kretschmann.