The lead in voter support for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative alliance over the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) shrank to a multiyear low of 4 percentage points, an opinion poll on Sunday showed.
The SPD, which a week ago appointed Martin Schulz as leader, scored 29 percent in the survey published in newspaper Bild am Sonntag — a six-point jump that Bild said was the biggest pollster Emnid had ever recorded for the party.
The jump took SPD support to its highest in over four years.