The task that Jochen Ott has taken on is huge: The 51-year-old from Cologne, currently parliamentary group leader, wants to become Prime Minister of the former SPD home state of North Rhine-Westphalia – and in the spring of 2027 beat the CDU incumbent Hendrik Wüst, who has good popularity ratings. Late on Friday afternoon, the SPD state executive unanimously nominated Ott as the top candidate. His official confirmation at a party conference in June is now only considered a formality.
However, the challenger is starting in a difficult situation: in North Rhine-Westphalia, which has been governed by social democrats for decades and has around 18 million people, the comrades have been achieving historically poor results for years. If the SPD’s 26.7 percent in the 2022 state election was already considered a huge disappointment, this came Party only received 22.1 percent nationwide in the local elections last September.
In the last survey, which was conducted in November, the Social Democrats were languishing at a lousy 19 percent, in line with the national trend. Wüst’s CDU, on the other hand, got 36 percent. Ott himself expressed himself accordingly cautiously. The nomination filled him with “great gratitude and humility,” explained the education expert, who taught history and social sciences at a comprehensive school as a senior teacher until 2010.
Wages, education, rents
The father of three daughters explained that he wanted to make NRW “fairer again” – and referred to SPD classics such as lousy wages, educational opportunities that are increasingly dependent on the economic status of the parents and skyrocketing rents. “I won’t let up until things are sorted out,” he promised.
I won’t let up until things are sorted out
Jochen Ott, SPD, top candidate in North Rhine-Westphalia
As opposition leader, Ott often attacked Wüst, who governed with a black-green majority, harshly and caustically. “Insubstantial PR policy,” he says, he is an “Insta president”. Well: Wüst has around 77,000 followers on Instagram, which is not particularly good. However, Ott himself only comes to 5,900.
Ott, who has been a comrade since 1992, has also rarely won elections. As a candidate for mayor of Cologne, he failed in 2015 due to the independent Henriette Reker. And in the state elections in 2017 and 2022 there was not enough for a direct mandate – only places 8 and 5 on the SPD state list secured Ott’s seat in parliament.
Ott is not the comrades’ preferred candidate
Ott is therefore not necessarily the preferred candidate for many Social Democrats. But the one who comes from the working-class town of Duisburg SPD federal leader Bärbel Bas hat waved her off and explained that she saw her place in Berlin. The Duisburg town hall boss Sören Link, who was brought into conversation by Bas, also didn’t want to take part – nor did the SPD’s most successful local politician in North Rhine-Westphalia: Marc Herter, who was the parliamentary manager of the state parliamentary group until 2018 and who was confirmed as mayor of Hamm in the eastern Ruhr area in the first round of voting in September with a sensational 63.6 percent.
Last but not least, the co-chair of the NRW SPD, Sarah Philipp, cleared the way for Ott. The 42-year-old, who has remained rather pale so far, was also considered a possible Wüst challenger. Given the weakness of the Greens, at least in the polls Currently, Ott can at least hope for a government office as deputy prime minister in a coalition with Wüst’s CDU.