In the run up to the 2002 national elections, the CSU/CDU held a huge lead in the opinion polls and Stoiber famously remarked that "...this election is like a football match where it's the second half and my team is ahead by 2–0." However, on election day things had changed. The SPD had mounted a huge comeback, and the CDU/CSU was narrowly defeated (though both the SPD and CDU/CSU had 38.5% of the vote, the SPD was ahead by a small 6,000 vote margin, winning 251 seats to the CDU/CSU's 248). The election was one of modern Germany's closest votes.