Scholz, the incumbent Vice-Chancellor a business-friendly fiscal conservative, had the backing of much of the party establishment, including General-Secretary Lars Klingbeil and several Ministers-President such as Stephan Weil[3] and Hamburg First Mayor Peter Tschentscher.

[4] Walter-Borjans and Esken proved to be unpopular and barely-known leaders and their parties poll numbers did not recover from the low to mid tens.

Party leader Martin Schulz subsequently announced that the SPD would not renew the grand coalition with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in which it had served since 2013.

However, in November, after it became clear that there were no viable alternatives, Schulz reneged on his pledge and called an extraordinary party conference which voted to negotiate a new coalition agreement with the CDU.

Nahles quickly faced difficulties with the new government as many disputes arose over the summer of 2018, including the "asylum quarrel" and controversy around Hans-Georg Maaßen.

In the 2019 European elections held on 26 May, the SPD placed third, winning only 15.8% of votes cast – the worst result for the party on a national level since 1887.

Each single candidate or two-person ticket needed sufficient support from state, regional, or local SPD associations in order to run.

[8] Michael Roth Nina Scheer Ralf Stegner Boris Pistorius Olaf Scholz Saskia Esken Alexander Ahrens Dierk Hirschel Nominations closed on 1 September.

On the right of the party, Köpping and Pistorius advocated more conservative positions on migration and integration; despite receiving by far the most district endorsements of any ticket, they were weighed down by a poor performance during the campaign, though they remained contenders.

The strongest opponents of the grand coalition on the party left were split between four – later three – tickets who hoped to proceed to the runoff: Walter-Borjans and Esken, Lauterbach and Scheer, Schwan and Stegner, and Mattheis and Hirschel.