After being relatively stable for nearly two months, there is now movement in the polls. The official campaign began today, April 10. The election will be held on April 23.
On March 20, a TV debate was held with the top five candidates. (This preceded the date when legally all official candidates must be included.) Western media response: Le Pen middling, Hamon awful, Fillon looked presidential, Mélenchon amusing, and Macron rocked. Non-MSM and French speaking response disagreed on Mélenchon and Macron assessments with Macron also middling, but Melenchon the star on the stage. The subsequent polls confirmed the second view.
Eleven candidates appeared at the April 4 marathon (over three hours) debate.
A total of 6.3 million people representing an audience share of 32% viewed the debate; BFM TV alone claimed 5.5 million viewers, equivalent to 28% audience share – an all-time record for the channel
Reuter’s report on it led with:
Centrist Emmanuel Macron kept his position as favorite to win France’s presidential election after a televised debate on Tuesday night in which he clashed sharply with his main rival, Marine Le Pen, over Europe, just 19 days before the election.
They would wouldn’t they. However,
In the Elabe snap poll taken when the debate ended in the early hours of Wednesday, firebrand leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a veteran of France’s political circuit, took first place as the most convincing performer.
Le Pen lagged in fourth place behind Macron and Francois Fillon.
Also:
In a debate that also discussed trade, immigration and security, Fillon and Le Pen came in for stinging attacks from two far-left candidates, who cited the judicial investigations facing them.
Note Reuters didn’t see fit to identify those two far-left candidates, and only named one, Nathalie Arthaud, later in the article.
The LaRouchie is holding steady at 0.5% or less.
Asselineau (far-right, euroskeptic) may have advanced from <0.5% to 1%
Dupont-Aignan (Gaullist) bouncing between 3% and 4.5% which is down slightly from before the debate.
LaSalle (new party; split from MoDem that passed on this election) hanging in at 0.5% to 1%
Arthaud (far left) no change at 0.5%
Poutou (anti-capitalist) up from 1% to 2% (almost a point better than his ’12 result).
Hamon (Socialist) continues his downward slide and is now at 9% (or somewhere between 8% and 10%). It was the debates that put him into the primary and in which he won both rounds. He hasn’t been able to replicate that in the general election. Hamon appears not to be a strong enough candidate to revive the party that Hollande destroyed.
Fillon (Republican) has been bouncing between 17% and 20%.
Le Pen down slightly from her 25% with ticks up to 27%. She’s now at 24% (with a low of 23% and high of 24.5%)
Macron is also down from 25% (with ticks up to 26%) to a range of 23% to 24%.
Mélenchon has steadily climbed from 10-11% (where he was in 2012) to 18%. (A flip from a 2/1 poll that had Mélenchon at 9% and Hamon at 18%). He’s not yet in contention to come in at first or second.
A third debate was scheduled for April 20 but has been cancelled. Macron only wanted one debate with all the candidates (echoes of Hollande in 2012). Mélenchon objected to holding it three days before the election and therefore, wouldn’t participate if it were held.
The prognosticators are using the outcome of Brexit and the USG election to conclude that Le Pen is being under-polled and therefore, will make it to the second round. In 2002 her father finished in second place with 16.86% and was only able to take that up to 17.79% in the final and in 2007 sunk to 10.44%. Marine Le Pen got 17.9% in 2012. It didn’t turn out that way in Dutch election, PVV (racialist party) fell far short of its polling numbers, only 20 seats out of 150 seats for 13.1%, a gain but only up from 10% in the prior election. The socialist party also collapsed there and VVD to the right ended up weaker.
That 18% for what can be referred to as a “neo-nazi” candidate may be the upper limit in coutries like France and Holland that experienced the real thing if the candidate offers nothing more. In the debates, Le Pen demonstrated that she doesn’t have anything else and her rise in the polls is a function of current difficulties with immigrants and terrorist attacks, but she may not be substantively that different on this issue from other candidates.
In 2012 the right side of the aisle ended up with 47.12% and that’s where it is now in the latest polling. At this point in the 2012 election, Le Pen’s poll numbers were between 16% and 17%, but that may not have been an undercount because the abstention/protest vote was projected to be much lower than the actual of 20.5%.
This time around, pollsters are getting an abstention/protest vote averaging in the mid-thirties. Who is lurking in there that may end up voting or not voting? A reasonable guess is disgusted/demoralized Republicans and Socialists. At the end of the day in 2012 it appears to have been disgusted/demoralized “moderates” and lefties. So, low turn-out, Le Pen gets to the second round. High turn-out, who knows?
Illustrating a change over the past two weeks (using Ifop polling).
March 26-31
Macron 26%
Le Pen 25.5%
Fillon 17.5%
Melenchon 15%
Hamon 10%
April 9-12
Macron 22.5%
Le Pen 23.5%
Fillon 19.0%
Melenchon 18.5%
Hamon 8.5%
—
UPDATE 4/12/17
The Guardian Freaks Out. And somewhat irresponsibly.
A dramatic seven-point surge by the wildcard leftwing veteran Jean-Luc Mélenchon appears to be holding, unexpectedly turning France’s roller-coaster presidential race into a possible four-way contest.
Barely 10 days from the first round of voting on 23 April, the independent centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen, both with 23-24% of the vote, are still favourites to go through to the run-off round.
But Mélenchon, an acid-tongued political showman with a radical tax-and-spend platform, is now just five or six points behind. Some recent polls have placed him third, ahead of the scandal-hit centre-right candidate, François Fillon.
Back in January before the Socialist Party had selected its nominee, Melenchon was polling at up to 15%. That dropped to 10% when a non-Hollande affilited nominee was chosen. By the end of March, Hamon was down to 10% and Melenchon was up to 15%.
The race between Macron and Le Pen isn’t tied up; Le Pen is still in the lead. More interesting is that both have dropped a few points.
The difference between Melenchon and Fillon is currently running at 0.5% with variance between polls as to which of the two is leading for third place.
With an acid-tongued political showman with a radical tax-and-spend platform…, The Guardian got in all the negative buzzwords they couldn’t use in describing Corbyn or Sanders. Then a moment of accurate reporting before they really get rolling:
Mélenchon’s rise means that with up to a third of voters undecided, no two opinion polls entirely alike and margins of error to account for, it is impossible to say with certainty who of the front four will go head-to-head in the second round.
As I noted above, that’s correct.
The extreme unpredictability of the contest is rattling financial markets and observers alike. The campaign “smells bad”, the outgoing president, François Hollande, has privately told friends, Le Monde reported.
Fearing what commentators are calling a destructive mood among voters, Hollande also warned against the dangers of “simplifications and falsifications” in an election widely marked by anti-establishment anger and populist politics.
How dare voters be angry! Oh, and the “smells bad” has been coming from Hollande; so much so that he didn’t stand for re-election.
Then the fear-fear-fear card.
Pierre Gattaz, the leader of France’s main business group Medef, said this week a second round pitting Mélenchon against Le Pen would be “a catastrophe” for France, forcing voters to choose between “economic disaster and economic chaos”.
The plebes and rubes are supposed to STFU and choose more income/wealth inequality and more war. Not sure why they think this will work better than it did in the UK and US.
UPDATE #2 Uh Oh
A MONUMENTAL computer blunder could cost Marine Le Pen the French general election as 500,000 citizens living outside of France have the chance to vote twice.
Half a million people received duplicate polling cards in the post, which would allow them to cast two votes at the first round of the election, held on April 23.
French authorities confirmed they would not be investigating the potential electoral fraud until AFTER the election, when retrospective prosecution may take place.
This could crush Ms Le Pen’s dreams of surging to power, as most French nationals living outside of their country are not right wing – demonstrated by the fact many feel they depend on the European Union (EU) to guarantee their stay in foreign countries.
Emmanuel Macron visited London in February and held rousing talks urging London’s 300,000-strong community to vote for him.
London’s French population equates to France’s sixth largest city, and now many of those 300,000 people will have the chance to vote for Mr Macron twice.
…Interesting how a computer “glitch” just happened to put two ballots in the hands of TPTB favorite candidate. Doubt they will now be screaming that Putin-Russia did it. (Of course it’s illegal for those that received two ballots – and some that aren’t eligible at all to vote received ballots — to cast both of them. But with a crook or two running for president, why should the little people worry about legal niceties?)
UPDATE #3 Sondage popularité : le grand bond de Mélenchon Ifop public approval rating for various politicians. May mean nothing considering that the 72 year old convicted felon Alain Juppe, who lost the LR primary to Fillon, has a 60% approval rating. 2017 Presidential candidates in order of approval rating:
Melenchon – 68%
Macron – 55%
Hamon – 48%
Dupont-Aignan – 41%
Le Pen – 32%
Fillon – 27%
I never understood French politics.
Nevertheless, if I had to bet, it would be on Le Pen, based solely on what I see as a worldwide drift to the Right.
It may be inconceivable but so was President Trump.
You’d bet on Le Pen to win the first and second round?
The Economist — odds as of February 22, 2017
At 93%, Le Pen was inevitable to make it to the final round. (Wasn’t the similar to the odds for HRC in the general election?) Then she would lose.
Would be cautious about the polls in this French election. The two primaries (Republican and Socialist) didn’t close until the last few days and neither Fillon nor Hamon were expected to win.
Tend to disagree about a worldwide drift to the right. Extreme right has been getting stronger but the two major (traditional) parties are getting weaker as they stand for less and less and not so much difference from each other. There’s a fantasy that there’s a sweet spot between the two majors, but that doesn’t last longer than one election cycle and after that becomes weaker then ever (like the UK Lib-Dems).
Fear Inc. …
Where’s Putin in the equation?
Haven’t a clue. Does it matter>
A bit of sarcasm 😉
On occasion I bet the Daily double also, but not the Trifecta.
Odds are surely against it, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
○ Israel condemns Marine Le Pen for denial | JTA |
○ Benoit Loueillet from National Front suspended over Holocaust-denying statement | JPost |
○ Spicer sorry for saying Hitler didn’t use chemical weapons | Times of Israel |
Decided not to include that and give it a few more days to see if it pushes her back down to her 18% base.
I see rising anti-Semitism around the world also, including young Germans.
Rising our more public/internet expressions of what has long existed?
Remember to factor in that it was one Israeli-American kid that was behind hundreds of threats against Jewish operations/organizations. Take those out of the data, and that “rise” disappears.
Well, that kid didn’t produce the Germans with swastika tattoos that my friend Jim saw on his cruise ship a few short years ago.
Where did I claim that neo-nazis have been extinguished? I merely challenged your perception that it has increased in the past couple of years.
Good Lord. In the city where I spent a 5 month sabbatical, there are plaques on buildings about round ups of Jews and others, and they were organized by French authorities.
Whatever it was eighty years ago, it’s less today. Just as misogyny and anti-AA (and very real laws that denied women and blacks autonomy) and is still alive today but is less than it was eighty years ago. It’s better in discussions of current elections to keep it current and not reference eighty, a hundred, or two hundred years ago.
Huh? I was remarking on Oui’s link to LePen denying French complicity in WW2 deportations.
Prior to a couple of decades ago, French leaders made that hair-splitting distinction between the French State of Vichy, which they considered (not unreasonably) illegitimate, which ran the roundup operation, and the French Republic, represented in London by DeGaulle.
Pres Chirac seemed to close that artificial discussion 20 yrs ago when he acknowledged French responsibility.
Le Pen, even with a non-trivial segment of her supporters possibly of an anti-Semitic bent, probably made a political mistake bringing up the old distinction. To the extent it has put her on the defensive in the final days as it makes people think of her Holocaust-denying father, and if in fact she already has the anti-Semitic vote locked up, she has likely not helped herself with her remarks.
She hasn’t succeeded in becoming mainstream enough apparently.
Trump had the imprimatur of an establishment party.
○ Benoît Hamon asks French left to unite after former Socialist PM backs Macron
○ France’s presidential election is tearing its left apart | The Economist |
The fake left has united with the centrists. (Macron, Valls, Sarkozy, MoDem). But a few seem to be getting cold feet.
The Socialists have disintegrated. Hamon may be okay, but Hollande is one of the more hated politicians at the moment and that means that Hamon can not get out from under that cloud.
I’m still trying to understand why Hollande is so despised. Is it a matter of blaming him for a general malaise, sluggish economy etc.?
Not difficult. Republicans and right wingers hate socialists regardless of how non-socialistic a socialist may act. Socialists and lefties have no regard for fake socialists. Hollande was the first Socialist elected since Mitterrand left office in 1995 and proceeded to govern more like Chirac and Sarkozy. Unlike Americans that rallied around GWB after 9/11, Hollande hasn’t benefited from the three major terrorist attacks in France. And in France, there’s actually political parties and candidates to the left of the Socialist Party. Democrats freaked in 2000 when Nader took a whopping 2.74% of the vote. How would they do if left parties routinely took 10%-15%?
Yes, I understand that there are people and parties to the left of the Socialists. Did Hollande govern like Sarkozy? Not so obvious, but he didn’t provide effective leadership to advance an agenda. Did not help that early on he was caught sneaking out of the Elysee palace on a motorcycle for late night trysts with his lover. Made him look like a fool.
Hollande was elected to end austerity, he chose to double down on austerity. France can not be thrown out of the eurozone, so the tools that worked on Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and member states in eastern Europe, would have been much less powerful with France. But he didn’t even try, he just folded. And he has attacked the unions, using presidential decrees to avoid the legislative, and using emergency decrees after terror attacks to arrest demonstrators in the streets.
Macron was his minister of the economy until last fall, leaving observers who pays attention no doubt about what he stands for. Which is why the media loves him, or at least their owners do.
His poll numbers began to drop in his first year early over bad pub about wife problems (Hollande loudly had announced he wanted to be a Normal President, scandal-free and traditional), a financial scandal with one of his ministers brought more bad pub, as did the revelation of his secret affair with a well known French actress.
The impression grew over certain govt policies that Hollande was more interested in taking care of business owners rather than the unionized worker.
Then the impression that he was too distant from the people, a rather cold fish who couldn’t connect with the average Frenchman/woman. Hollande’s political advisers warned him about this, but he refused to change, or “put on a mask” as he put it.
Yours truly …
○ Most Impopular French President Ever
Roll Call – Stop-Loss an Option for Air Force to Keep Departing Pilots.
This is an old old problem. IIRC you can get a five figure salary flying a jumbo jet for an airline vs peanuts flying for Uncle Sam.
Is there a shortage of jumbo jet pilots? Short haul and commuter airline flights don’t pay much. What’s the current going rate for cargo plane pilots?
Yes, IIRC, the contract has a clause “or as long as services shall be required”. That four year enlistment is legally a lifetime commitment.
Thanks for the detailed report and discussion.
Remarkable stability in a way. Usually 3 and 4 way races are volatile. Le Pen and Marcon are down a bit, Melenchon look like he has consolidated the left a litte.
What is odd when I look at Huff Pollster is how little disagreement there is in the polls. The Guardian says the polls disagree – and what I see is agreement.
Last 3 polls
Marcon -23, 23, 23
Le Pen 24 23 -24
Fillon 20 19 19
Melenchon – 18 17 19
Virtual carbon copies of each other. There is so little difference between them it is almost suspicious.
I have no idea how this sorts out.
The last five polls were all conducted between April 8-12, after the second debate. All moved in the same direction which suggests that the polling is okay. Ifop appears to be a tracking poll and picked up a tiny bit of movement in the latest:
Macron 22.5
Le Pen 23.5
Fillon 19
Melenchon 18.5
In 2012 there was no movement in the polls for the leaders from the end of February through election day and the election results for those two was right where they’d been polling.
Differences from ’12:
Sarkozy held more of the Republican/gualist factions in polling and votes. The split is larger this time.
A centrist (MoDem) was in the race and took 9%. That faction has moved to Macron and the Socialist Party vote split — Macron and Hamon — and split again Hamon and Melanchon.
Green Party dropped out and threw its weight 2-3% behind Hamon, but the voters appear not to have followed.
A third of the electorate is undecided. This is up from the 20% that sat out in ’12.
Voters confounded the Republican and Socialist primaries this time around and they may do it again.
I do follow polling in other countries.
The French polling is REALLY unusual in how tightly it is grouped. Very different than the US, or Brexit or the Dutch polling.
The last three elections I have followed with any interest all were characterized by polling misses. With undecided so high I wouldn’t be surprised to see it again.
But France is very different: the choices are very different from each and that may account for both the relative stability and the accuracy in French elections in the past.
Still, if I had to bet, I would bet on a surprise.
It is hard to follow given the parties, but the Front underperformed their polling in both rounds. This is somewhat consistent with the Dutch elections.
Both Le Pen and Melenchon are your Change candidates this election. Unfortunately for Le Pen, who was expected to go into the second round, Melenchon also has charisma and strong personal appeal to voters interested in shaking things up.
So unlike over here where Donald was far and away the major Change candidate for Republicans, in France this year the overall support for major change will be roughly split evenly between the far-left and far-right candidates and likely only one will continue on.
So, if current favorable winds continue for Melenchon, he could end up slipping past Le Pen to go into the second round against Macron. Possible anyway. 10 days to go.
An upset would be Melenchon slipping past Macron and Fillon slipping past Le Pen.
There are 4 candidates within 5 points of each other.
So I know shit about French polling, but in general (and I do follow the UK and Canadian polling pretty well) anything could happen.
Multi-candidate fields are inherently unstable.
Then you’re way ahead of me. This is the first time I’ve ever looked closely at polling in France and that required me to get an understanding of the parties and the politicians. What piqued my curiosity enough to do so was the swooning in western media over Macron. Young? Yes. Dynamic? How and why so? Qualified? With a political portfolio limited to having been Hollande’s economic advisor and one of the primary reasons that Hollande didn’t stand for re-election, it became more curious. Added to that, he created his own brand new party; a socially liberal capitalist. Why would “Clinton/Blairism” be exciting in France? Who was funding him?
Two more polls out today that confirm the micro-trends of the others seen in the past few days. After so carefully to publicly distance herself from daddy’s more extreme racism, she exposed herself. Down to 22.5% in the Elabe poll, but that needs to be read cautiously because this pollster has consistently had her a point or two lower than what the other pollsters have been reporting. No way to evaluate which one of more accurate. Or if all of them are off as they were in the primaries.
A micro fleet to Fillon. Yeah sure, he’s corrupt but so too were his leading primary opponents, Juppé and Sarkozy. As is Chirac. Fillon’s corruption, based on what is currently known, is more provincial than that of the others.
At this point the only outcome that would surprise me is that Hamon makes it to the second round.
Did those undecided voters also sit out the 2nd round?
In 2012, half a million more voted in the second round then in the first, but 1.4 million more voted a spoiled vote or blank. So, it depends on the definition of sitting out.
Here’s an in-depth analysis of the 2012 runoff. Fair warning, it’s complex. May have to revisit it and make use of it if I put together a diary on the second round.
Excellent summary:
○ Opinion polls for the first round of voting | WikiPedia |
The French polling commission (commission des sondages) recommended that pollsters not publish second-round
surveys before the results of the first round … nevertheless, the expected final result:
○ Emmanuel Macron (EM) will be the next president of France
Just to keep the media talking about this election:
○ Could Mélenchon be on his way to the Elysée? | France24 |
Bigger sample sizes in the polling that in the US. One thing not generally known in the US is polling in the 60’s and 70’s had larger sample sizes. Both of the main pollsters used to go door to door, and as a result had much lower refusal rates.
A good case can be made that polling is not as good in the US as it used to be, though there is certainly a lot more of it.
That would probably still work.
I suspect the combination of phone-salesmen and general caller ID displays (in cell phones and new land line phones) has ended an era of cheap and reliable polling. Anecdotally, I read several stories during the US election of people answering one poll and then being called numerous times (without being part of a constant pool), indicating that the people who do the work cheats a bit and calls people who actually answered the questions in the past. If this image is accurate, it introduces more uncertainty, uncertainty that pollsters don’t account for or tell the public about.
“Marcon” … Macron actually.
Best remembered this way: Macron has that background in govt in the Economy ministry. Think of macro-economics.
Macro … Macron.
I wish the label far-right for LePen went away. Her economic program is left/populist. She combines that with nasty nativist rhetoric and Muslim bashing. She loves the centralized state and a generous safety net, just not for “those people”.
Her position on keeping, strengthening the social safety net is not untypical for a Euro/French pol either of the right or left. Generally Euro conservatives and ultra-right are different from the US type in important ways, a strong nat’l govt and the social safety net being most prominent.
Le Pen also diverges sharply from many on the American Right on some of her FP proposals, as with being a Nato skeptic and calling for an end to sanctions on Russia. On the latter, she tracks more closely the small group on the American Left (including me) which parts company with the establishment Dem Party line on Nato & Russia.
Within the context of Euro/French politics, calling her far right is about as accurate as anything. Populist right perhaps, as opposed to Fillon being corporatist right.
Melenchon is now polled for second round too. Wins against LePen, loses against Macron. Though that could change once round one is done.
Looks like the French political establishment is getting nervous about Melenchon’s recent upsurge in popularity. Hollande found it necessary to weigh in negatively on the far-left candidate recently and how he would be a disaster for the economy.
If current trends continue, it would probably be Le Pen who would be hurt more than Macron, as far-lefties over there would have seen populist LP as more simpatico on workers’ rights than the centrist corporatist Macron.
Hollande found it necessary to weigh in negatively on the far-left candidate recently and how he would be a disaster for the economy.
And like Valls, voter response may the opposite of what was intended/expected.
(Thanks for your contributions to this thread. All of them have been informed and thoughtful.)
Thanks, but like most here I’m no expert on French politics. Je fais de mon mieux.
As most of us keep trying to do.
Did you really intend a zero for fjallstom above? I think maybe you clicked the wrong button.
Of course not. Thanks for bringing this mistake to my attention.
You’re Welcome. Wouldn’t have commented if it were Marduk or oogabooga or JoelDanWalls.
You missed a few, but no need to call them out as the proprietor tolerates them because as he’s said, they aren’t agents or dupes of Putin-Russia like yours truly.
○ France Sees Red | France24 |
Panel discussion on France24 tonight … latest poll shows four candidates in the running for the two top spots in first round. LePen and Macron in virtual tie at 22%, both dropping a percentage point. In third place passing Fillon is Mélanchon at 20%.
Taking into account the polling margin of error, all four candidates are able to earn a spot in the second round. The panelists are expecting a reaction from the right conservative voters to back Fillon to head-off a surging Mélanchon.
Quite interesting as the race tightens!
○ ‘Unsubmissive’ France…and other awkward political translations
Cliffhanger or nail-biter. And a third of the French electorate is still in the don’t know/won’t vote/vote null category.
Could a goodly portion of that don’t know group just be screwing with the pollsters to give them a big surprise on election day?
One thing to remember: polling in general is telling you the state of the race 3 days ago.
Here is why:
Today is the 15th
The best polls will be from the 11th to the 14th
So half the sample is on the 11th and the 12th
It’s is why there is sort of a baked in reason for polls to miss if there is late movement. It’s not that the poll is bad, it’s that the timing of the poll is bad.
I created a huffpost chart.
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/france-presidential-election-round-1/edit#!minpct=0&
;maxpct=40&mindate=2017-03-15&maxdate=2017-04-15&smoothing=less&showpoints=yes&s
howsplines=yes&hiddenpollsters=&hiddensubpops=&partisanship=S,P,N&parties=D,R,I,N&am
p;selected=macron,le-pen,fillon,melenchon,hamon,other&fudge=1
Melenchon seems to have peaked. I can’t see any real movement for anyone: 4 candidates within 3 – 5 point of each other.
○ Hollande warns against `peril’ of leftist presidential candidate Mélenchon | France24 |
I do trust trendlines over a number of weeks. Often the turnout is decisive for the shift in a last few percentage points between candidates. Loyalty to a party doesn’t go far when performance in a (coalition) government has disappointed. The incumbent is in a disadvantage, or another reading, the change candidate performs well. See US election with Bernie Sanders and the US Apprentice Donald Trump. No comparison between the two on integrity.
Trendlines seem to have been better in the past than they’ve been for the past three years.
In the ’16 general election, there was nothing at the national level. However, at the state level, it was possible to detect when several states had flipped and were set from then on. For example, IA and OH were gone by early September. FL and NC were gone by early October. A lot of time was wasted by pollsters and HRC’s campaign in continuing to focus on those two and ignoring why IA and OH had flipped and what was going on in PA, MI, and WI, only one of which Trump needed to win.
Projecting turnout is complicated due to the multiple impulses of voters. For example, if my preferred candidate has a solid lead, some will be more inclined to show up and vote for a winner and some will feel less needed. And which of those two impulses wins seems to vary by election. While it’s fun to postulate that in the end voters are strategic, the evidence for that is hard to find. If Fillon and Melenchon aren’t seen to be grinding it out and adding to their current poll numbers, both will underperform in the election.
More “data” — Express UK
More of a clue that it’s wide open.
Fun and refreshing, but I’m not French and they may not be amused.
In the country of Le Canard Enchainé, it’s probably being received well.
Not a bad ploy by Mélenchon, to amusingly mock the worries of the establishment pols, as he had to expect the sort of over-the-top criticisms from that quarter as he rose higher in the polls. It was either something like that — clever amusing comments which get attention –or let the establishment stop his momentum in the final days with their negativity campaign.
No Michael Dukakis he.
Suspect it’s who he is. Too difficult to carry off as a ploy. Few politicians have that keen a sense of humor. (Trump appears to be devoid of humor. HRC reportedly has a sense of humor, but it’s weird.)
As I impatiently await the vote on the 23d, an attempt at US equivalents to the major French candidates. I’m more confident in the first 3; on #5 I draw a blank:
Melenchon = Sanders is probably the most apt, but that mostly because they’re both on/of the political left and dismissed by TPTB. As you pointed out, Melenchon isn’t a wilting flower and with heat Sanders can wilt.
#3 seems to be closest. Except Macron is a much lighter weight politically and attractiveness and charisma are very bland. Yet, politically more in the Bill Clinton/Tony Blair mold. And most likely molded.
Le Pen and FN have been around for some time and wouldn’t put her in the P. T. Barnum category. The closest US equivalent that I’ve been able to come up with is George Wallace.
Fillon more like Romney but more provincial. Brownback and Quayle come to mind.
I don’t know how Hamon won his primary. Maybe “I’m not Hollande” was good enough. Probably a little too green to sell both a moribund party and himself. He’s running about where the Dutch Socialist party came in last month — about 9%. A difference is that French SP voters have nothing to gain in sticking with the party and/or Hamon.
Mélenchon – Sanders: Much more of a left-far left political tradition in France, so Mel is more easily able to bat back the criticisms. Bernie on less firm, established ground here.
Macron: Still too early to tell re political lightweightedness — lots of campaign speeches and only two debates, where he didn’t embarrass himself. So far though, for a political néophyte, he’s done rather well.
Le Pen – Wallace: I see that (though far more in the GW ’72 sense than ’68 — by 72, he’d learned to clean up his act, smooth over some of his rough edges, as LP has done with much of the overtly antisemite types surrounding her, starting with her father …) but was trying to find more contemporary or current player analogues.
Fillon – Romney: Well, I needed to find a place for Hillary in this exercise. FF seemed the better fit. I don’t see the Quayle comparison though — Fillon is not perceived as a moron.
Fillon – Quayle: Well, I did miss the provincialism comment (because they’re obviously in different universes intellectually). Did you intend to allude to Le Mans = Indianapolis?
Yes, shouldn’t have been so slapdash with the Quayle comparison. I was only thinking of “looks the part,” conservative religious, and not a city slicker.
Ignoring age, Macron is cut out of the same cloth as Hillary, Bill, Blair, Obama, and Trudeau.
Macron slipped in the polling after both debates, not a lot but still. Early hype can carry an objectively not dynamite neophyte a long way. Le Pen, Hamon, and Melenchon were all in a position to rip the “I’m not Hollande” mask off Macron’s face and supplant it with a Hollande with horns mask. Le Pen has her thing but nothing else, including political smarts.
wrt George Wallace up until after he was shot, he was a rabid racist and New Deal Democrat. He always led with the former but the latter was real. Le Pen is picking up from rabid racist daddy and all she’s done (until this week) is soften and also expand upon racist rhetoric, but it’s still her calling card. She’s more hollow after that than Wallace was. It’s an odd combination not seen in US politics since the GOP captured the racists. In his later years, Wallace was one of the few (only?) southern white Democrats that kept the faith with the New Deal and dropped his racist creds. Trump during the campaign did hint at that odd combination which may have been a familiar and pleasing echo for older southerners that were once Democrats. Of course, like everything else about Trump it was fake.
Yet for those similarities, there’s a missing component with Le Pen. Traditional southern Democrats were also very pro-war. Trump also played that one well — he would be tougher and smarter than Obama. I don’t mean to suggest that Trump was smart enough to game this all out — his formulation was simpler, he turned himself into “not Obama,” but it was all superficial nonsense.
A couple of others have made the Macron and Trudeau comparison. Others that come to mind are Obama, Dukakis and Tony Blair.
Hamon is Hillary.
Fillon is Bush the elder.
FWIW.
Macron: there’s also some Bill Clinton ’92 there. Young fresh face on the national scene, drifted rightward a bit from his early liberal roots, financial elite-friendly/too friendly, articulate and charismatic (Bill more so), “interesting” wives …
Hamon – Hillary: In the sense of the leader of a discredited major party?
Policywise, Hamon represents the socialist wing of the Parti Socialiste. Guaranteed universal income for instance.
Hamon is definitely the Mr Multiculturalism candidate, with his accommodating attitudes on immigration and laïcité.
Way, way off on Hamon. The Guardian called him the French Corbyn.
He has had a long and rich political history — always on the left of the SP and frequently active in reviving the party which apparently keeps drifting away from its roots and then getting battered electorally. Regardless of how poorly he does in this election, not likely that he’ll retire from the game.
○ Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign By Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes
Arrogance just drips off those two. Doubt they’re ever admit that Hillary was propped up by 99% of the Democratic Party, most of the financial community, IC, and Hollywood celebrities and all that wasn’t enough to carry her over the finish line against a two-bit, carny barker. And it wasn’t enough because she’s always been coasting on Bill’s short coattails.
The Guardian – The Democratic party is undermining Bernie Sanders-style candidates . Sure would have been nice to see more information like was was included in this article in the FP post and diary on the KS special election to fill Pompeo’s House seat.
There are a couple of lessons from that race. First, forget DP help.
FBI, DOJ, and DHS not yet completely out of business – The Guardian – Michigan doctor charged with carrying out female genital mutilation . This is one practice, mutilation of girls/women, that must be totally stamped out in this country.
Religious freedom. (or freedumb)
about USians mis-remembering or lying about their past behavior — Reason – Poll reveals …
IOW – 28% of Americans are warmongers and LIARS.
I think you are correct, but it is possible to have been against the war but support it when it starts anyway. So both polls may be correct.
Against it before they were for it before they were against it? Yeah, guess without principles, it’s tough to remember all one’s head spinning.
Never understood rallying around an idiot after he’s done something stupid and destructive. The best way to “protect and/or support the troops is not to send them off to war for the benefit of the ego of an idiot or to enrich further those that have.
Most people believe and trust authority. They are not rebels like us. That’s how elites rule. With the consent of the ruled. War decisions are viewed uncritically. They are “team” players. Didn’t we see that in the last election?
I’m not a rebel. In a functional and healthy society and culture, authority figures would be trustworthy. People shouldn’t have to spend their time smelling the propaganda and BS, sorting out facts from fiction, looking for and at all the hidden agendas of “authorities.” The lies that get compounded and build up to real problems that were orchestrated or manufactured.
What the hell was this country doing overthrowing Iran’s democracy? Installing a tyrant. Depriving Iranians/Persians of their self-determination and turning that country and those people into an enemy for decades. Similar wrt Russia. Although in that effort, lives of Americans were destroyed and significantly hobbled.
Disgusting that the primary purpose of this country has become war and the people are too dumb to add up the cost to them, theirs, and ours.
Sure you are. You and my daughter. Peas in a pod. Rebellion for the sake of rebellion. I’m a silent rebel. Outwardly docile, inwardly following my own drummer.
I’m much to introverted, albeit with a big mouth, to be a real rebel. Hence, edgier people experience me as straight, center-left experience me as leftish, and the further the person is to the right, the further I’m seen on the left spectrum.
That’s human sociobiology, especially in tougher times. You survive by choosing the right tribe…
Herd instinct for sure. Follow the alpha male.
I should add that a majority of Americans believed (and maybe still believe) that Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11. After all, the President of the United States was telling the that they had to invade Iraq because of 9-11.
Are the French suffering from lack in leadership? It appears the voters are ready to deal a blow similar to the Brexit campaign in Great Britain: anti-establishment protest vote and pro populism and France nationalism. Also quite in agreement with the US November election, the province and agricultural sector having a feeling of being left behind. The large immigrant population are living in close quarters of high rise flats in dilapidated neighbourhoods (jobs) and searching how to become part of French society.
I don’t think this is correct. In the 2004 final daddy Le Pen got 17.8% and in the 2012 first round Marine got 17.9% about where she had been polling if the null/abstention projections had been correct. From the polling to the actual voting, null/abstention increased from 14% to 22.4%. IOW it wasn’t Melenchon polling voters that switched to Le Pen but Melenchon polling voters opted out.
The polling and election results in France is more interesting from an analytical perspective than that in US because “won’t vote” isn’t captured in US polling and “none of the above” isn’t captured in US elections (except for NV where it was 2.56% in 2017, similar to 2012 in France when it was 1.92%). Probably because it’s such a large number.
So, the task is to detect movements/shifts from one candidate to another and from DK to a candidate through the campaign to election day AND expansion or contraction of those that are undecided as to whether or not they will vote and if so for whom.
A recent poll in France as to the level of commitment for a particular candidate revealed that Le Pen’s voters are the most committed. From 4/6 to 4/14 (Ifop) Le Pen dropped from 25% to 23.5%, but if the total universe of voters are included in her percentages, her decline is infinitesimal. She’s retained on the order of 98% of her voters between those two dates.
An illustration of this from the 2012 final. The last Ifop poll had it:
Hollande 52%
Sarkozy 48%
Actual:
Hollande 51.64%
Sarkozy 48.36%
The pollsters nailed that one even though the polling had “null and won’t vote” at 15% and the actual null vote was 5.82% and didn’t vote was 19.65. IOW “neither” split fairly evenly between the two candidates.
Applying that perspective to the first round (polling to actual), only the GRN, DLR, and FN held their support to the ballot box. Melenchon was the biggest loser, but Hollande wasn’t far behind Melenchon. Followed by MoDem and Sarkozy as to either failing to get their voters to the polls or losing support. Not surprising that a “hopeless” candidate with a lower level of committed voters to the candidate, like Melenchon in ’12, drops between polling and actual votes into the protest vote black hole. What’s surprising is that so many SP voters did the same. Thus, it appears that Hollande was weaker on the left than the actual results in both rounds suggested.
Other than the title — Against all odds, a communist soars in French election polls — James McAuley at WaPo wrote a decent article on the election. Okay, he’s still calling the first round for Macron and Le Pen, but he’s hedging his call. What makes this better than the usual MSM slop is that McAuley presents Melenchon in a favorable light and points out that Melenchon’s rise in the polls is giving TPTB heartburn.
Will add a Reuters report on Sunday doings in the French election. Far-left veteran Melenchon draws big crowd as French election enters final straight.
The big MO or merely rallying his base that has gotten a boost from the left side of socialist party voters currently stuck with a decent but hopeless candidate?
We need thread.
Patrick Ruffiani – a conservative but pretty good with numbers noted the closeness of the polls and wondered if herding was taking place (ie the pollsters watch each other and mimic each others results).
He might be right here.
Fillon is within 1 in the most recent poll. Marcon and Le Pen are at 22, Melenchon is at 18.
http://presicote.factoviz.com/index/more/id/qoo_lew_1
Anything can happen.
To read meaning out of the small changes that are probably noise, both of the top two candidates seem to have faded over the last two weeks.
Probably frustrating for the pollsters as well. Only getting micro changes from one poll to the next and DK/won’t vote stubbornly high. Normal elections end up a horse race between the socialist party and republican party with both ending up in the final regardless of how poorly the party and/or the politician has been faring up until that time.
This election was only quasi normal from the beginning. Normal in that Fillon was battling for first place and abnormal that the battle was with Le Pen and not the Socialist party/candidate. Then it became totally abnormal as both major parties appeared to be out of the running. Republicans never “came home” in 2002. Will they this time?
How can Melenchon have a 68% approval rating and not be in the top two? Does Le Pen have hidden support among voters too embarrassed to admit it? Can Macron pull off his wolf in sheep’s clothing act?
The polls seem to confirm (for me) that indecision is high. What’s a Republican and a Socialist party voter to do when both parties are disfavored and the nominees aren’t attractive?
○ Poll: Le Pen losing support as Macron, Fillon rebound | Market Trend |
○ France frontrunners address supporters in end spurt of presidential campaign | DW |
Latest trend, Le Pen losing one percentage point and Fillon getting support from his right-wing of party gaining a percentage point. Biggest surprise would be if Marine Le Pen is bypassed by Fillon and misses out in first round!
○ French election poll tracker | FT |
Thirty percent of voters may sit out the first round … a strange observation when the four candidates are in a position too close to call!
Appears to me that Le Pen has shred all of her soft support. From this point on her percentage (approx 22%) will only drop if “don’t know/will abstain” drops as she doesn’t appear to gain anything from the ranks of the currently undecided.
Le Terrain has only conducted two polls (March 23-27 and April 13-15). Possibly its first ever election polls, and therefore, has no track record from which to assess its polling/statistical skill. However, something interesting pops out from its first poll. It was ahead of the curve as to the direction of other polls over the subsequent weeks. For example in the few days before and after that first poll, other pollsters had Le Pen at 25-26 and le Terrain had her at 24%. Had Hamon at 9% while the others had him at 10-12%. Melenchon at 19.5% with the others at 14%. And Macron at 24.5%, within the 24-26% range of the others. The other le Terrain outlier was Fillon at 15.5% compared to 17-20% in the other polls.
A note of caution — being at the forefront of a trend that materializes over three weeks cannot be construed as being at the forefront of a trend with only one week to materialize.
More intriguing is the decline in DK between those two polls — and again le Terrain may be ahead of the curve. Using the same polling dates #1 March 23-26 and #2 April 13-15:
Ifop: #1 DK 38% and #2 DK 30%
le T: #1 DK 30% and #2 DK 25%
Normally, I would find Le T’s numbers for Fillon suspect. OTOH, in this election cycle all the other pollsters have over-rated the party status quo candidates. Neither Fillon nor Hamon were expected to make it to the second round for their nominations. While Fillon’s chances to win the second round were good, his final number was much better than predicted. Hamon was expected to lose the second round. So, who knows?
However, and only assuming (a big assumption) that le T’s polling is excellent, is Le Pen’s loss (24% to 21.5%) Fillon’s gain (15.5% to 17.5%)? At most only a third of Fillon’s gain can be at Le Pen’s expense. Two-third’s of his gain is from undecided with possibly a smidgen from DLR/other. General electorate turnout isn’t Le Pen’s friend, and at an 80% turnout she could drop to fourth even if she holds all her current voters.
Intriguing … interesting times.
Not only in France, Germany but also UK PM May adds a snap GE to erase the uncertainty on Brexit negotiations in Europe.
Hmmm … what about NI, Wales and Scotland [#IndRef2].
○ Election 2017: No TV debates this time
May’s plum (snap election) is too green for me to pick it. Another two weeks and it should begin to ripen enough to see how sweet or bitter it may be by election day.
We’re in a “change” popular mode, but the desired change remains elusive and politicians aren’t finding that merely slapping “change” onto the top of their campaign fliers is selling as well as it did ’08-’12.
The excerpts from “Shattered” that I’ve seen indicate how easy it is to misread the desire for change and the form it needs to take. Bill Clinton believes that he won in ’92 because he was the change people wanted. He wasn’t. People were merely tired of Reagan and Bush and figured the alternative couldn’t be worse. It wasn’t worse but neither was it different or a change.
The DP in ’14 and initial stage of Hillary’s campaign followed in that same mode; offering more of the same dressed up (not Obama) as change. Hillary had to pivot from “not Obama” within a few months because it was a loser for the nomination but it was still toxic and Clinton change-purse only contains coins for more neoliberal economics and more war.