My daughter has spent a lot of time recently on anti AfD demonstrations, it’s grim.
I have to admit though the level of confidence that Merz is going to win it makes me somewhat uneasy. I would like this outcome, but this assumption … and all based on polls?? As we know, in recent years more and more pre-election polls in the US have been getting it wrong. In fact, what they tend to do is shape the turnout for voting day. Meaning, in cases where they show a big lead for a candidate (i.e. 10+ points lead for Merz) what happens is people get complacent and think that since the gap is so big it is not going to make a difference if they don’t show up and vote. And for the other side in the minority, these polls tend to mobilize them into action, so they come out of the woodworks to vote for their candidate more so than they would have done had the polls not presented their candidate to be lacking support. So, yes 10 points is a big lead, but nothing is actually guaranteed.
You’re right, it happens regularly 