for him to try and decide this election in his favor. what he s done in the past couple weeks is he s mobilized german chancellor angela merkel, who is still vastly popular in this country, to try and donald trump up extra support. center left social democratic candidate oh laugh schultz, who is jarm s finance minister is ahead of laschet in the polls. some felt laschet was punching above his weight, trying to become german chancellor. but he also made what many germans perceived to be some unforced errors, like getting caught on camera laughing while visiting victims of massive floods in western germany. armin laschet made it very easy for the people who disliked it to explain why they disliked him and wouldn t vote for him. that, i think, could become a fatal effect in his election