BERLIN—Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the new leader of Germany’s Christian Democrats, heads into 2019 more popular than Chancellor Angela Merkel, who supported her rise to the top of their party, an opinion poll showed on Dec. 30.
The survey by pollster Emnid for weekly newspaper Bild am Sonntag showed 45 percent of 507 voters surveyed wanted Kramp-Karrenbauer to play a leading role among Germany’s top politicians in the coming year, ahead of Merkel, at 40 percent.
