Nina Schick is a European political commentator and consultant specializing in EU policy, German politics and Brexit. She previously worked at the independent think tank Open Europe. The opinions in this article belong to the author.

(CNN) Political upset and change -- the twin themes dominating Western politics of late -- have led to Britain's voting to leave the EU, the election of Donald Trump and, most recently, in Emmanuel Macron's ascendancy to the Elysée Palace in France .

Anything but the status quo everywhere, it seems. Well, nearly everywhere.

Six weeks ahead of Germany's national elections, Chancellor Angela Merkel launched her bid for reelection last weekend in Dortmund, a small city in Germany's industrial heartland and the country's most populous state.

Unlike other deeply polarizing elections in Europe (and the US), don't expect this one to get too heated. There will be no fire and brimstone from Merkel: she will run a calm -- maybe even bland -- campaign.

So can Merkel be stopped? It seems unlikely. She has won seven straight votes since she was first elected to parliament in 1990. And she will almost certainly win a fourth term as Chancellor in September, marking over a decade in power, and bucking the trend seen in other Western liberal democracies.

Her most recent approval rating, released on Thursday by Infratest Dimap , suggests that a whopping 59% of Germans think that "Mutti" is doing a good job. Other leaders would kill for numbers like these. For Merkel, there's room for improvement: it's 10% down from last month.

What about her competition? At the moment it looks likely it'll be blown out of the water.

Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks to delegates of her political party, the Christian Democratic Union, in February 2018. Hide Caption 1 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel was born in Hamburg, West Germany, in 1954, but she grew up in East Germany. Her father, Horst Kasner, was a Lutheran minister and her mother, Herlind, was an English teacher. Hide Caption 2 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel, left, attends a New Year's Eve party with friends in Berlin in 1972. In 1977, at the age of 23, she married her first husband, Ulrich Merkel. They divorced in 1982, but she kept the name. Hide Caption 3 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel poses with her siblings, Marcus and Irene Kasner. Hide Caption 4 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel visits a children's home during her campaign to become a member of the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, in 1990. Before turning to politics, Merkel had trained as a physician. She was also a spokeswoman for the "Democratic Awakening," East Germany's opposition movement before reunification. Hide Caption 5 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel A month after being elected to the Bundestag, Merkel was appointed to Germany's Cabinet in January 1991. Chancellor Helmut Kohl named her Minister for Women and Youth. Hide Caption 6 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel looks at Kohl during a conference of the Christian Democratic Union, their political party, in 1991. At the time, Merkel was a deputy chairwoman for the party. Hide Caption 7 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel changed Cabinet positions in 1994, becoming Minister of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. Here, she visits a water-control station in Bad Honnef, Germany, in 1995. Hide Caption 8 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel, as the country's leader on environmental issues, irons wrapping paper to show how it can be recycled. Hide Caption 9 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel and Health Minister Horst Seehofer attend a Cabinet meeting in 1995. Hide Caption 10 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel sits in a "strandkorb," or beach basket, in an undated photo. In 2000, Merkel became the Christian Democratic Union's first female chairperson. It was the opposition party at the time. Hide Caption 11 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel, left, attends the opening of the Wagner Festival, an annual music festival in Bayreuth, Germany, in 2001. Hide Caption 12 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel spends part of her summer in Langballig, Germany, in 2002. Hide Caption 13 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2002, one of many meetings they would have over the years. Merkel speaks Russian fluently, while Putin speaks German. Hide Caption 14 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel speaks in Nuremberg, Germany, ahead of federal elections in 2005. Hide Caption 15 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel is sworn in as Germany's first female chancellor in November 2005. Hide Caption 16 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel visits the White House in January 2006. A few days later she also visited the Kremlin in Russia. Hide Caption 17 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel US President George W. Bush shows off a barrel of pickled herrings he was presented after arriving in Stralsund, Germany, in July 2006. Hide Caption 18 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel visits troops stationed in Turkey in February 2013. Later that year she was re-elected for a third term. Hide Caption 19 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel and her husband, Joachim Sauer, walk with US President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama before a dinner in Berlin in June 2013. Merkel and Sauer have been married since 1998. Hide Caption 20 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel speaks to Obama on the sidelines of a G7 summit near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, in June 2015. Hide Caption 21 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel was named Time magazine's Person of the Year in 2015. Time Editor-at-Large Karl Vick described her as "the de factos leader of the European Union" by virtue of being leader of the EU's largest and most economically powerful member state. Twice that year, he said, the EU had faced "existential crises" that Merkel had taken the lead in navigating -- first the Greek debt crisis faced by the eurozone, and then the ongoing migrant crisis. Hide Caption 22 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel and Obama test a virtual-reality headset at a trade fair in Hanover, Germany, in April 2016. Hide Caption 23 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel and US President Donald Trump hold a joint news conference at the White House in March 2017. Hide Caption 24 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel raises her glass during a toast at the Trudering Festival in Munich, Germany, in May 2017. Hide Caption 25 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel records her annual televised New Year's address in December 2017. Hide Caption 26 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel In this photo provided by the German Government Press Office, Merkel talks with Trump as they are surrounded by other leaders at the G7 summit in June 2018. According to two senior diplomatic sources, the photo was taken when there was a difficult conversation taking place regarding the G7's communique and several issues the United States had leading up to it. Hide Caption 27 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel attends a Bundestag session in June 2018. She pressed lawmakers to back a tough but humane asylum and migration policy for the European Union. Hide Caption 28 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel In this handout photo provided by the German Government Press Office in July 2018, Merkel meets a newborn calf during a visit to the Trede family dairy farm in Nienborstel, Germany. Hide Caption 29 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel offers flowers to Volker Bouffier, the state premier of Hesse and the deputy chairman of the Christian Democratic Union, ahead of a party leadership meeting in October 2018. The day before, her coalition government suffered heavy losses in a key regional election in Hesse. Hide Caption 30 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel speaks at a debate on the future of Europe during a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, in November 2018. Merkel made a call for a future European army and for a European Security Council that would centralize defense and security policy on the continent. Hide Caption 31 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel touches the scepter of a Carnival prince during the annual Carnival reception in Berlin in February 2019. Hide Caption 32 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel poses for photos with students as she visits a secondary school in Berlin in April 2019. Hide Caption 33 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel talks with European Council President Donald Tusk and British Prime Minister Theresa May at a roundtable meeting in Brussels, Belgium, in April 2019. May was in Brussels to formally present her case for a short Brexit delay. Hide Caption 34 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by Prime Minister Theresa May, greets Merkel in Portsmouth, England, in June 2019. It was ahead of an event marking the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. Hide Caption 35 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel Merkel and new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky inspect a military honor guard as he arrives for his first official visit to Germany in June 2019. Merkel was seen shaking during the ceremony, but she later suggested dehydration was to blame and said that she was doing "very well." Hide Caption 36 of 37 Photos: In photos: The life and career of Angela Merkel The hands of Merkel and Finnish Prime Minister Antti Rinne are seen as they listen to national anthems in Berlin in July 2019. Merkel's body visibly shook again, raising concerns over her health. She said she was fine and that she has been "working through some things" since she was first seen shaking in June. Hide Caption 37 of 37

Martin Schulz -- leader of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and former president of the European Parliament -- promised to shake things up when he entered the political fray earlier this year, hoping to unseat Merkel.

At first his campaign dealt in emotional political rhetoric and seemed to be making headway. Column inches were filled with articles about "the Schulz Effect" as the SPD was neck-and-neck with Merkel's CDU in some polls.

And then it fell flat. The SPD made big losses in three regional elections that serve as bellwether of the national vote, including a painful defeat in North-Rhine-Westphalia, a traditional SPD heartland and the state that Dortmund happens to call home.

The task ahead seems nearly impossible now for the SPD. "The SPD is Burning," read an editorial in the respected German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung last week.

What's Merkel's big secret? Being Angela Merkel.

That means staying cool, calm and pragmatic, even in the face of the most difficult circumstances. Don't forget that she has weathered numerous crises in the last few years.

At the height of the eurozone crisis (remember those tense hours ahead of the 2015 "Greferendum," when Yanis Varoufakis jetted back and forth to Brussels, and it looked like Greece would be thrown out of the common currency?) it was Merkel who spent political capital to keep the bloc together.

Then there was the Ukraine crisis -- catalyzed by Russian President Vladimir Putin's particularly boisterous brand of nationalism -- which saw Merkel take the lead in placing EU sanctions on Moscow, despite Germany's close economic links to Russia.

Merkel's biggest "wobble" came during the 2015 migration crisis, when over a million refugees and asylum seekers came to Germany, forcing temporary border controls and heated public debate, domestically as well as internationally. As her approval ratings tumbled, some (mostly Anglo-Saxon) commentators were overzealous in predicting her imminent demise and the hijacking of German politics by the right-wing and anti-immigrant AfD party.

And that's the thing: they believe her -- much to the disbelief of some political observers. In this increasingly unstable world, German voters want their capable manager to remain in post. They want her to protect what matters to them most: the economy, and the European Union.

And in Germany there is no cause for great alarm. The economy is doing well, unemployment is at a low, and even the refugee crisis seems to have abated (for now).

Germans don't want a political revolution. So why would they take a risk?