More likely to win reelection: Rishi Sunak or Olaf Scholz?

[Sir Mohamed]

2 major G7 leaders from Europe who - unlike Macron - are running for reelection, but have vastly different ideologies and personalities. The UK will almost certainly vote in Q4 of this year and Germany is expected to hold their next election in autumn 2025. However, for the last several months, both Sunak and Scholz have atrocious approval ratings and their parties are polling way behind.

Who has a greater chance to remain their country's leader after the next scheduled election? I would say Tilt Scholz, as he was more time to turn things around and unlike Sunak already won an election against all odds.

[S019]

Scholz has more time and with the AfD rising, could theoretically run a successful anti-AfD style campaign. I see no scenario where the Tories hang on, while the SPD is probably not completely DOA, yet. They both have very low chances though.

[mileslunn]

Only way Scholz stays on is if Left and BW both get over 4% and agrees to a four way coalition but odds are extremely low.  For Sunak, a plurality of seats definitely possible if has a budget with popular tax cuts, Reform party flops and Starmer massively underperforms.  But even then its majority or bust as Liberal Democrats and SNP in a hung parliament likely support Starmer.

[Red Velvet]

Neither, both will get absolutely destroyed quite easily.

The projections in Germany manage to be much more insane than UK in terms of landslide. In UK at least the Tories are still the #2 party and tend to get in between the 20%-30% vote intention even if they will get crushed by Labour.

In Germany, SPD risks becoming the #4 party even BEHIND the Greens if the trend continues, they’re both doing around 15% now, behind CDU (High 20s) and AfD (Low 20s).

Sunak also has better approval numbers than both Macron and Scholz according to the Morning Consult tracking.

[Isaak]

Only way Scholz stays on is if Left and BW both get over 4% and agrees to a four way coalition but odds are extremely low.  For Sunak, a plurality of seats definitely possible if has a budget with popular tax cuts, Reform party flops and Starmer massively underperforms.  But even then its majority or bust as Liberal Democrats and SNP in a hung parliament likely support Starmer.

"Extremely" is the right word here because this would imply that...

...both LINKE and BSW get indeed over 5% (not 4%), which is unlikely.
...the SPD would be willing to form a coalition with the LINKE, which is extremely unlikely. Especially with Scholz as Chancellor.
...the GREENS would be willing to form a coalition with the BSW, which is extremely unlikely. Especially since there are more lucrative options (i.e., a coalition with the CDU/CSU).
...the LINKE would be willing to form a coalition with the BSW and vice versa, which is virtually impossible. The whole point of the BSW is the claim that the LINKE has become a progressive perversion of real leftist ideas.

And even in the absurd scenario of such a four-party alliance... look at the polls:

SPD 14.5%
Greens 12.5%
LINKE 3.5%
BSW 7%.

No majority in sight.

I really think Sunak has the edge here (due to the peculiarities of the Westminster system). Scholz is basically DOA and I see no way how he could ever form a coalition in 2025.

[Sir Mohamed]

Only way Scholz stays on is if Left and BW both get over 4% and agrees to a four way coalition but odds are extremely low.  For Sunak, a plurality of seats definitely possible if has a budget with popular tax cuts, Reform party flops and Starmer massively underperforms.  But even then its majority or bust as Liberal Democrats and SNP in a hung parliament likely support Starmer.

"Extremely" is the right word here because this would imply that...

...both LINKE and BSW get indeed over 5% (not 4%), which is unlikely.
...the SPD would be willing to form a coalition with the LINKE, which is extremely unlikely. Especially with Scholz as Chancellor.
...the GREENS would be willing to form a coalition with the BSW, which is extremely unlikely. Especially since there are more lucrative options (i.e., a coalition with the CDU/CSU).
...the LINKE would be willing to form a coalition with the BSW and vice versa, which is virtually impossible. The whole point of the BSW is the claim that the LINKE has become a progressive perversion of real leftist ideas.

And even in the absurd scenario of such a four-party alliance... look at the polls:

SPD 14.5%
Greens 12.5%
LINKE 3.5%
BSW 7%.

No majority in sight.

I really think Sunak has the edge here (due to the peculiarities of the Westminster system). Scholz is basically DOA and I see no way how he could ever form a coalition in 2025.

Possibly, his best shot is coming in ahead of CDU again. Then he could form a grand coalition with him as chancellor.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It is very sweet that people think that the Westminster system is relatively kind towards governments on the skids.

[Alcibiades]

Certainly Scholz: he has more time to turn things around, German mid-term polling frequently ends up bearing very little resemblance to the actual election result, the dissatisfaction with his party in many ways goes less deep than that with Sunak's, and the mechanics of German coalition formation creates further uncertainty as to who will be Chancellor after 2025, in addition to the far greater general volatility of the current German party-political scene.