BERLIN--Angela Merkel failed to score a clear victory in the first and only televised debate with her main challenger Sunday, according to viewer polls, but the incumbent German chancellor remains the strong favorite to win the September 22 election.
Peer Steinbrück, chancellor candidate for the center-left Social Democrats, won the standoff with 49% of those surveyed saying he was "more convincing," according the Germany's ARD public broadcaster. Some 44% of those polled said Ms. Merkel won. Among undecided voters, 54% said Mr. Steinbrück was more convincing.
A separate poll for public broadcaster ZDF, however, showed Ms. Merkel winning the debate with 40% of respondents giving her the victory and 33% saying Mr. Steinbrück won.
Though the polls offered conflicting views on who won the debate, the pollsters' analysis broadly agreed that Mr. Steinbrück performed better than many voters expected. The result could give Mr. Steinbrück's lagging campaign a much-needed boost. But with just three weeks left in the campaign and Ms. Merkel's party enjoying a lead of about 15 percentage points in the polls, most commentators believe the best the Social Democrats can hope for is a strong second place.
Though Mr. Steinbrück, a former finance minister, gets high marks for his command of complex issues, he has failed to match Ms. Merkel's strong personal appeal with voters. That dynamic was again on display in Sunday's debate, with a majority of viewers polled saying they found Ms. Merkel more likable than her challenger. Only 10% of those surveyed in the ARD poll said the debate had changed their mind about whom to give their vote.
Mr. Steinbrück tried to undermine Ms. Merkel's record on national security, euro policy, and social justice during the 90-minute debate. But Ms. Merkel frequent retort was one that polls show many voters take to heart: compared with the rest of the world, Germany is doing well.
"What we accomplished in the last four years is relatively sensational," Ms. Merkel said.
Some of Mr. Steinbrück's sharpest criticism of Ms. Merkel came over her policy of calling for steep budget cuts in troubled European countries like Greece in exchange for aid from Germany and other creditors. He argued that Ms. Merkel had helped create a "vicious circle" of economic pain in those countries and that Greece and other countries needed a "Marshall Plan 2" to stimulate their economies, referring to the U.S. aid program for rebuilding Europe after World War II.
But German voters, nervous about how much taxpayer money has been put at risk by bailouts of Greece and Cyprus, largely regard Ms. Merkel's policies toward the rest of Europe positively.
That has increased the likelihood that current center-right bloc under Ms. Merkel's leadership will be re-elected. A coalition of the Social Democrats and the environmentalist Greens was 11 percentage points behind Ms. Merkel's center-right coalition in the latest TNS Emnid results published Sunday in the TNS Emnid newspaper.
German journalists have long called Ms. Merkel the "Teflon chancellor" because no scandal seems to scratch her political facade. That held true this summer.
Since June, German media and opposition politicians have fanned outrage over disclosures of extensive U.S. surveillance in this eavesdropping-wary country. Some, including Mr. Steinbrück, alleged that Ms. Merkel hadn't fulfilled her oath of office to protect the German people from harm.
Last month, Ms. Merkel's finance minister stated more bluntly than before that Greece would need a third bailout package from Germany and other international creditors. A storm of controversy followed as critics claimed that Ms. Merkel hadn't been honest with Germans about the future costs of rescuing troubled members of the euro zone. Handelsblatt, the leading business daily, published a cover featuring Ms. Merkel with a Pinnochio nose.
And most recently, Ms. Merkel has been threading the needle between outrage over the chemical attack in Syria and German voters' deep skepticism of military action. While the Greens and the Social Democrats have gone on record opposing intervention, Ms. Merkel's government has been more cautious and insisted that the U.N. Security Council had to address the crisis. On Sunday night, Ms. Merkel said Germany wouldn't participate in a U.S.-led military strike.
Despite the summer's controversies, Ms. Merkel's standing in the polls has only improved. Even her center-right governing coalition, seen as dead just months ago, now appears to have a strong chance of being re-elected. The latest polls show that scenario being about as likely as a result that leads to a "grand coalition" between the Social Democrats and Ms. Merkel's Christian Democrats. In both scenarios, Ms. Merkel would be expected to remain chancellor.
In the debate, Mr. Steinbrück tried to play on his image as the blunt, no-nonsense former finance minister, while Ms. Merkel exuded a calm but firm expertise that has become her trademark.
When, for instance, Mr. Steinbrück tore into Ms. Merkel for failing to protect German interests in the National Security Agency espionage affair, she responded: "Mr. Steinbrück, I don't act first and think later. I do it the other way around."
