 A member of the Bundestag from 1998 to 2001 and again from 2002 to 2011, Scholz was Minister of the Interior of Hamburg under First Mayor Ortwin Runde from May to October 2001 and general secretary of his party under chairman and chancellor Gerhard Schröder from 2002 to 2004.He served as Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs in Merkel's first Grand Coalition from 2007 to 2009 and leader of the SPD in Hamburg from 2000 to 2004 and again from 2009 to 2018.Together with former Brandenburg state representative Klara Geywitz, he received most votes in the first round of the 2019 election for the newly introduced dual leadership of his party, but lost with 45% in the ensuing run-off to the winners Norbert Walter-Borjans and Saskia Esken.