2017 French Presidential Election

[Tintrlvr]

So in terms of "indirect exposure" time it's:

279 Thatcherboy
139 FBM
96 Panzergirl
67 Hamon
25 Mélenchon

In other words, "F**k off, leftists, we have decided that this race is between corrupt mean neoliberal, pragmatic nice neoliberal, and big bad fascists."

You can't just put everything in the media's basket. A candidate also has a responsibility for his visibility.

How so? Candidates are doing all they can to win, and they have an interest in getting visibility, so it's not like they'd deliberately choose to avoid it when they have a chance to get it.

Frankly, I don't have the impression that Hamon is doing everything he can to win, but rather the opposite. He may in fact be consciously taking a low profile because he knows he is going to lose and would himself prefer Macron to Fillon/Le Pen. Hamon is not Melenchon, who would like to see right-wingers burn the world to the ground so that the left (and he personally) can triumph, and ultimately is aware that his candidacy is dead in the water unless something outside of both candidates' control (or at least definitely outside of Hamon's control; Macron could screw up epically) happens to Macron.

[Tintrlvr]

is melenchon able to swallow some FN voters too?

Maybe some. He's definitely got at least a bit of overlap with Le Pen in certain demographics (laborers, in particular). I expect most of any gains he makes to come from Hamon. After the debate I think Hamon is going to drop into single digits, not really through any fault of his own but because he is squeezed between Macron and Melenchon.

[Tintrlvr]

Also it worth notice that Dupont-Aignan reaches the 5% threshold in two polls (Elabe poll yesterday and Ifop tracking)

Is there any explanation for this?

Constant barrages of negative news about Fillon coupled with "traditional right" voters having nowhere else to go?

[Tintrlvr]

Hahahaha:

Macron: 65%
Arthaud: 62%
Poutou: 55%
Hamon: 54%
Fillon: 53%
Cheminade: 49%
Melenchon: 43%
Dupont-Aignan: 42%
Le Pen: 38%

I'm either a liberal internationalist or a hardcore communist. I don't even know how that happened, but it placed me as super-social-liberal but just left-of-center (about right), which is far from everyone, so I guess it's not a big surprise.

[Tintrlvr]

I'd like to meet some of the 14% of Fillon voters who have Melenchon as their second choice

Really bizarre but seems like probably small sample sizes. People who are drawn to egotistical maniacs as a general matter?

[Tintrlvr]

The polls were way off in 2002 (both overstating Jospin and understating J-M Le Pen), so it is certainly possible that they will be off again. I believe in 2007 the polls substantially overstated J-M Le Pen also (perhaps as a overreaction to 2002), so it is not guaranteed that an error in FN's polling will necessarily be to M Le Pen's benefit. Melenchon's support was also somewhat overstated in polling in 2012 (he got 11% but was polling mostly in the 13-15% range).

[Tintrlvr]

Which candidates do you guys think could be more hit if turnout is extremely low as polls are saying? I say it could be Macron and Mélenchon because of their not very strong voter base while Fillon and Le Pen could be the main beneficiaries.

Speaking without anything close to the expertise of some other posters here...

I think Le Pen is hurt most by lower turnout. Her voters are most enthusiastic about her but are also generally disaffected types who aren't necessarily very political. I think they are the most likely not to vote.

Melenchon is also likely hurt because his vote skews quite strongly towards the young and relies (to a lesser extent) on the same types of disaffected voters as Le Pen. (Those 3% or so of voters who have of late switched from Le Pen to Melenchon are probably the least likely group to vote.)

Macron may be hurt a little bit because he also does well with young voters, but on the other hand he does very well with upscale highly educated voters (both bobo-types and more conservative/moderate but reformist wealthy voters who are turned off by Fillon's sleaze), who probably have the highest voting propensity of all demographics, so Macron may do worst in a middling turnout environment rather than low turnout.

Fillon is the candidate most obviously helped by low turnout and hurt by high turnout because his voters skew very old and quite well off, making them the most likely to vote.

Hamon is probably helped by low turnout at this point, as the ~5% of voters who will always vote PS are the types who will turn out to vote for him no matter what, though he is obviously dead in the water.

Most of the crank candidates are probably helped by low turnout as they have their (small) loyal fanbases.

[Tintrlvr]

I'm really afraid a lot of disaffected former Fillon voters from when he was at 27% will change their mind at the last minute in the voting booth, like many indecisive Republicans finally broke out in favor of Trump at the very last moment. They could think "better a crook than Macron".

Anything is possible but I don't see any comparison whatsoever between the attitude of a typical Les Republicains voter in France towards Macron and the attitude of a typical GOP voter in the US towards Hilary Clinton. Macron has nowhere near the negatives that Hillary had and on top of that by virtue of being male, he doesn't elicit misogyny. The real knuckle dragging white supremacists in France are not the Fillon voters, they are the LePen voters.

Mostly agree, but there are plenty of knuckle-dragger LR voters who think FN is too lower class to vote for them. Not that such people would ever consider Macron.

[Tintrlvr]

Would be an interesting twist on IRV, STV and run-off systems to have STV determine the top two, then have the top two from STV run in an ordinary run-off instead of going full IRV.

[Tintrlvr]

Would be an interesting twist on IRV, STV and run-off systems to have STV determine the top two, then have the top two from STV run in an ordinary run-off instead of going full IRV.

but why though

French people complain a lot when you point out IRV would be way better than their system ("but people vote differently in the second round!"). This would solve the problem, and also might reduce the impact of  voter confusion in IRV systems with long ballot papers.

[Tintrlvr]

The Orleanist pretender to the French throne has endorsed Fillon. This changes everything!

Interesting question, though - do royalists (confined basically entirely to the royal pretenders themselves these days) generally prefer LR or generally disavow politics as far too republican? Is an endorsement of an LR politician by a pretender unusual, or not?

[Tintrlvr]

What time should exit polls be expected again?

The projections (which is based on real results, not a poll) will be released at 8pm, if everything is okay.

There are two uncertainties:
-Will the pollsters have enough time to collect the result and calculate their projections? This year they will have only one hour, not two. I read that to be sure to have a projection at 8pm the pollsters will double their selected polling stations where they collect the first results. At 8pm it will be also the first projection while in the past it was the second or third actualization, it might be less accurate.
-We always had in France a clear picture of the result at 8pm, this time it could be different, the media are preparing for a "too close to call" situation, so instead of 2 faces at 8pm we could see one (if only one candidate is sure to be in the runoff), or three, or four.

Also the pollsters have confirmed to the national commission of polls that they will not conduct any exit poll Sunday, so there is absolutely no way to have any idea of the result before 8pm.

In 2002, was it considered certain at 8pm that Jospin was out of the runoff and Le Pen in?

[Tintrlvr]

I voted.

You were for Hamon, yes?

Bien sûr.

How do you think your area will go?

Also how does Ivry-sur-Seine go, I have family that live there?

Ivry has a strong PCF tradition (has only had communist mayors since the 1920s). It will vote for Melenchon with Macron second.