In France and Spain, far more people said they didn’t consider her performance either good or bad; rather, they either had no opinion one way or the other or had never even heard of her.
More than one in five French respondents said they didn’t know who von der Leyen was, compared with 10% in Spain and just 5% in Germany.
The polling landed just hours before von der Leyen is set to outline her vision of the future of the bloc in her annual State of the Union address.
“Von der Leyen is up against the same anti-political sentiment that has unseated incumbents across the continent, and will have to work hard to convince Europeans that any EU agenda is going to address their widespread concerns about the cost of living,” said Seb Wride, head of polling at Public First, POLITICO’s polling partner.
The polling numbers also showed that few citizens will be following von der Leyen’s speech live.
Across the three countries, around one in 10 said they’d follow the address closely, while about one in three said they’d follow it a little. German respondents were more likely to pay attention to the speech. In Spain and France, more than half reported that they either wouldn’t follow the address despite being aware of it, or had never heard of it.