German Greens Bet on Habeck as Scholz Sees Support Dwindling

(Bloomberg) - Germany's Greens picked Economy Minister Robert Habeck to lead them into February elections as support for Chancellor Olaf Scholz among his own Social Democrats seemed to be crumbling.

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Habeck, who's also Scholz's deputy, secured 96.5% of the vote at a Green party congress on Sunday. He'd announced his intention to run as the Greens' candidate for chancellor last week, setting up a contest with Scholz and conservative opposition frontrunner Friedrich Merz.

Speaking to party members, Habeck warned against renewed cooperation between the CDU and SPD. The past grand coalition governments are to blame for the country's gridlock, he said, and "continuing this policy is damaging Germany."

The Social Democrats, meanwhile, are less united on who to pick as their candidate. As Scholz's popularity with the public wanes, some members would prefer Defense Minister Boris Pistorius to lead the campaign, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday.

Scholz is still sticking to his pitch for a renewed candidacy. "The SPD and I are prepared to enter into this confrontation, and with the goal to win it," he told journalists in Berlin on Sunday, before departing for the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro.

The Social Democrats currently garner some 16% support in national polls and are in third place behind the Christian Democrats and the right-wing Alternative for Germany. The Greens were at 10% in an INSA report published Saturday.

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After one of the most chaotic and least productive sessions in modern history, voters made a surprising choice in elections for the U.S. House - they overwhelmingly stuck with the status quo. House Republicans will hold onto a thin majority, and while the chamber's exact partisan divide is still to be determined as votes are tallied in a handful of states, the results of 435 House races nationwide have produced hardly any change to the makeup of the chamber. In fact, it's more like a stalemate: Republicans and Democrats have each flipped seven seats, while just eight incumbents nationwide have lost their races.