FOR months, Sigmar Gabriel, the boss of Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD), has wrestled with the decision of whether to run against Angela Merkel, the chancellor, in the federal election on September 24th. His personal popularity lags far behind hers. In polls, the SPD has the support of only 21% of Germans; Mrs Merkel’s centre-right bloc has 37%. His support in his own party, especially among its left wing, is weak. And, as Mrs Merkel’s coalition partner, vice-chancellor and cabinet minister, he sounded unconvincing when attacking her policies. Knowing that he was bound to fail, on January 24th he chose instead to surprise his party by stepping down and handing over to another Social Democrat with a better chance.

The new party leader and candidate for chancellor will be a friend of his, Martin Schulz (pictured, right). Mr Schulz, as the former president of the European Parliament, has several advantages over Mr Gabriel (who is planning to become foreign minister instead). Mr Schulz is known as a straight talker and an unequivocal champion of European integration. Standing next to Mr Gabriel for his announcement, he promised to “fight all populists”, a reference to the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a right-wing Eurosceptic party. And, having been outside German domestic politics, Mr Schulz is not tainted by the SPD’s grand coalition with Mrs Merkel. He can attack her, the party hopes, better than any other Social Democrat can today.

Unfortunately for the SPD, even that does not improve the party’s chance of victory much. Mrs Merkel’s approval ratings have recovered from the lows seen during the refugee crisis in the winter of 2015-16. They now stand at 74%, according to Forschungsgruppe Wahlen, a pollster—a level most world leaders can only dream of. Germans clearly believe that Mrs Merkel has restored order. After 890,000 refugees arrived in 2015, only 280,000 came last year, and the numbers appear still to be falling. Some 57% of Germans now feel that the country can cope with the refugees. Even the terrorist attack in Berlin in December, when a Tunisian refugee drove a truck through a Christmas market and killed 12 people, appears to have helped Mrs Merkel. In a poll soon after the attack, 68% of Germans said they did not blame Mrs Merkel’s refugee policy. Of those who did, most already supported the AfD, which nonetheless remains stuck at around 12% in national polls.

Instead, the attack has shifted the political debate away from inequality, the SPD’s preferred topic, and towards security, the traditional forte of Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrats. Thomas de Maizière, Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrat interior minister, this month proposed an overhaul of Germany’s security architecture: he would centralise agency bureaucracies that are currently dispersed among the 16 federal states, deport rejected asylum-applicants faster and detain suspected terrorists longer. If security remains the battleground of the election, Mr Schulz will struggle to score points against Mrs Merkel.

Moreover, the coalition maths favour Mrs Merkel. The Social Democrats would face a daunting task to find partners to reach a majority of seats in the Bundestag. Like all mainstream parties, they have ruled out talking to the AfD. But even an alliance with the other two parties on the left—the ecology-minded Greens and the post-communist Left party—would fall short of a majority, according to all recent polls. Everything therefore points to Mrs Merkel being the only one able to form a ruling coalition. The Social Democrats might even be willing to remain in their current position as junior partners.

It helps Mrs Merkel that world news is keeping Germans anxious for steady leadership. America’s new president, Donald Trump, perturbs them daily with his tweets. And negotiations for Brexit will begin later this spring. To Germans, both Mr Trump’s presidency and Brexit threaten to unravel the Western-dominated world order in which post-war Germany has been successfully embedded, built around the European Union, NATO and the free-trade agreements on which Germany’s exporters rely.

Outside Germany, this has raised hopes that Mrs Merkel would take up the mantle of defender of the liberal order that America and Britain appear to have dropped. Uncomfortable with such expectations, she has called that suggestion “grotesque”. But as the year progresses, with strong populist showings possible in the Dutch and French elections, German voters are likely to value responsible leadership even more. They will respect Mr Schulz, who has overcome much hardship in his life. After a knee injury cut short his dream of playing professional football, he became an alcoholic in his early 20s, but has been a teetotaller since 1980. However, in choosing their leader Germans are likely to plump again for what they see as the safest pair of hands: those belonging to their long-reigning chancellor.