Edmund Stoiber
Before the 2002 election, the CSU/CDU was on top of the opinion polls and Stoiber said that "...this election is like a football match where it's the second half and my team is ahead by 2-0", a quote that has become famous. However, on election day things had changed. The SPD had a huge comeback and the CDU/CSU got  less votes. Both the SPD and CDU/CSU had 38.5% of the vote, but the SPD was ahead by 6,000 votes. Gerhard Schröder was elected again as chancellor by the parliament. He joined together with the Green party. Many people think it was Stoiber's reaction to the floods in eastern Germany, shortly before the election, that made his party lose the vote. Also, Schröder made clear that he was against the Iraq war led by the United States. He made the war the main topic in his campaign, which was seen by many people as the changing factor in the weeks before the election.