In March 2018 Angela Merkel was appointed to her fourth term as chancellor of the German Federal Republic. How did perceptions among vot- ers develop over the past fourteen years of her chancellorship? A detailed analysis shows that the chancellor is more popular than ever. In the recent federal election even the majorities of voters who identified with the SPD, the Greens, or Die Linke evaluated the chancellor positively. This article analyses why the Angela Merkel became so popular over recent years using survey data from 2005 to 2019 to answer this question. Results from a multivariate regression show that voters’ increasing satisfaction with the government’s performance and ideological closeness explain the rising support for the chancellor.