And he also really got into copying Merkel. Always kind of above it all (despite Wirecom et al), never really taking any real position or responding to the CDU's attacks on him. Watch his tone and the way he answered questions. He even did the Merkelraute once. I guess he just analyzed perfectly what the Germans really wanted: continuity. Because despite a whole lot of talk about climate change (and none about Foreign policy!), voters (apparently) just don't want to rock the boat. A tweet I saw phrased it perfectly: "This campaign season, the German voter wanted to shop around, flirt with radical change and look at what it would entail, they looked at all those exotic dishes on the menu, but in the end, they chose Bratwurst mit Kartoffelsalat again - what they know best."
Yeah, my take is that conservative voters did not like the conservative candidate so they chose the other conservative candidate.
Germany isn't as age polarised as other countries Exit polls, so grain of salt of course
It seems more the younger people prefer the non-traditional parties more, while the olds still like SPD or CDU.
But Left vs Right
Younger Left
Greens SPD and Linke
22+17+8 = 47
Younger Right
FDP CDU AfD
20+11+8 = 39
(Only 86% registered support in total for a listed party in the under 30)
Older Left
SPD Green Linke
35+9+4 = 48
Older Right
CDU FDP AfD
34+8+7 = 49
(97% registered support for a listed party for the older group).
So there is different support of course, and the parties within each category are different, such as socially liberal rightwing with the FDP. But Germany is still remarkably un age polarised. If you look at most Anglo elections, over 60 tend to vote way harder right.
It's a good thing Germany has avoided age polarisation of course, given how older the population and electorate is getting. Tyranny of the pensioners would be on hand if not for how well the SPD did with the older folks.
I would say, there is quite some age polarisation. Not on the left/right axis, but on the progressive/conservative axis. In the younger group you have 28% support for SPD+CDU compared to 69% in the older group. SPD and CDU ran both on the platform to keep everything mostly as it is with slightly different ideas how to fix some details. Greens and FDP both stand for "progress" and more radical changes to the current status. They just have very different ideas what "progress" is supposed to be and in which direction to go.