The long-awaited first round of French presidential election is now history. Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen will be on the second-round ballot, as recent surveys had predicted. In a two-week time, French electors will be again called to the polls to choose between the two the resident in the Élysée Palace for the next five years. (Zolpidem)
How is this going to end? The French case is the paradigm of two-round systems, where the crucial determinant lies in the second preferences of those who at the first round voted for someone not admitted to the second round. In this specific case, the decisive choice is going to be that made by those who voted for the Gaullist Fillon and for the left candidate Mélenchon, due to their numerical amount.
What do you think Fillon’s electors are going to do? Will they follow their candidate’s instruction to vote for Macron? To what extent? And what about Mélenchon’s electors? Yes, on a left-right dimension Marine Le Pen is so extremely far from them, but on some specific issues – starting with globalization and welfare – their positions are way closer to hers than they are to Macron’s.
Furthermore, those who casted their vote for the socialist Hamon may still play a very important role. Notwithstanding the failure of the President Hollande’s party, its candidate still received a number of votes not to be ignored in view of second-round. The same can be said for those who voted for the (former Gaullist) souverainist candidate, Dupont-Aignan. And as for Macron and Le Pen, we better not take for granted their ability to bring all of their first-round voters back to the polls.
The CISE arranged for you a simulator, which lets you rapidly calculate the final outcome in the innumerable different scenarios. All you have to do is deciding how first-round voters are going to be divided, between those who’ll vote for Macron, those who’ll opt for Le Pen, and those who will abstain. The simulator lets you hypothesize a quota of remobilization with respect to the first round – which is highly likely, as higher turnout in the second round than in the first often occurs in the French presidential elections.
We set the default percentages according to the vote shifts between first and second round estimated from the survey investigation we conducted a few weeks ago. Of course they can be changed as you like, but don’t forget: the total for each line must be 100. Enjoy!
