2017 French Presidential Election

[DL]

People keep repeating that 40% of Macron voters could still change their minds. That may be true in theory and in response to a polling question. But in reality if a "soft Macron" voters actually did have second thoughts about Macron, where would they go? Who would they switch to? LePen? I don't think so...Fillon? Seems unlikely at this stage...I suppose some could drift back to Hamon...but apart from that where would they go?

[DL]

Macron's voters tend to be more educated and politically aware...I can't see them abstaining en masse. And "how likely are you to change your mind about who to vote for?" Is a very different question from "how likely are you to cast a vote at all?"

[DL]

I find that Fillon reminds me a lot of that 360 year old vampire Barnabas Collins from the 1960s gothic soap opera Dark Shadows...now we just have to drive a stake through Fillon's heart and wave garlic at him

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/29100000/Barnabas-Collins-dark-shadows-29109096-640-480.png

[DL]

Its increasingly difficult to see any scenario (apart from assassination) that doesn't lead to Macron becoming President....if anything its increasingly looking like he will come in first in the first round

[DL]

I wouldn't count out Fillon yet btw. If Fillon has two strong debates and Macron has a scandal (legal trouble or something about his past as a Rotschild banker) Fillon might squeak it to a second place. Fillon's base of old Catholic rural conservatives will turn out for him anyway. But if Fillon still makes it, it will be because Macron completely flopped.

Yeah well the debate that matters most was the one this past week - and Fillon was widely viewed as having flopped. The next two debates are 11 way free for alls where it will be almost impossible for him to have much impact.

[DL]

As I've already said, there's no conclusive evidence of significant or persistent underpolling for the FN. Panzergirl slightly overperformed her last polling numbers in 2012, although the difference was never very large and probably within the margin of error. Since then, polling for the FN has been right on the spot or very close in both 2014 and 2015, when it wasn't any more or less 'shameful' to tell a pollster you backed the FN.

Who "tells" pollsters anything anymore...nowadays most of the polling we see is either online or automated...there might be a 'social desirability bias' when being interviewed by a live person - but when yo9u are just going clickety click on an online survey - no reason to be shy about voting for Lepen if that is what you plan to do

[DL]

Has anyone polled a Len Pen-Melenchon second round, out of curiosity?

Maybe, but we won't know. French laws forbid to publish unrealistic runoff poll.

How could you have a law against polling an "unrealistic run-off"? Aren't polling companies free to pose any question they want?

[DL]

Why is it considered "realistic" for a pollster to ask a question about a LePen-Fillon runoff but not about a LePen-Melenchon runoff???

[DL]

I wonder if there will be a "Shy LePen" effect here?  The good news for her opponents is that there are 2 rounds in France, so she would lose the element of surprise and Macron or Fillon could adjust their runoff strategies accordingly.

Macron just radiates Hillary Clinton vibes to me.  I wouldn't be surprised if he blows it and gets 3rd in the first round to be honest.  If French voters can swallow Fillon's scandal enough to put him into the runoff, I think he will win.

I don't see ANY resemblance whatsoever between Macron and Hillary Clinton. Clinton had been a public figure for 25 who had vast amounts of political baggage. She was always quite unpopular personally with high negatives etc... in contrast Macron is a novelty who has never run for public office before. The people who support him see him as an fresh new face who represents novelty. He has realty positive overall approval numbers. If he ends up falling short of expectations when the votes are counted he will be more like Nick Clegg in the 2010 UK election than Hillary Clinton

[DL]

Hamon indicates that he would rather endorse Melenchon than Macron if he loses the first round

http://www.lemonde.fr/election-presidentielle-2017/article/2017/04/09/benoit-hamon-appellera-a-voter-jean-luc-melenchon-s-il-perd-au-premier-tour_5108409_4854003.html

I guess that could mean something if the second round ends up being a run off between Mélenchon and Macron, but I think the odds of that are still about one in a thousand

[DL]

I guess the big question is what is Melenchon's "ceiling" for the first round. To actually get into the second round he would have to overtake LePen or Macron and get well into the 20s...Is that realistic or has he "maxxed out" at this point.

[DL]

I guess the big question is what is Melenchon's "ceiling" for the first round. To actually get into the second round he would have to overtake LePen or Macron and get well into the 20s...Is that realistic or has he "maxxed out" at this point.

Without Hamon dropping out, his ceiling is probably 19% or 20%. With Hamon dropping out, probably 24%(?)

On that note: another question, if Hamon did drop out, how many of his supporters would go to Melenchon?

And there is no chance at all of Hamon dropping out. If he did I suspect his support would split between Macron and Melenchon and virtually none of this support would go to LePen or Fillon

[DL]

I thought the core of LePen's support came from people why sympathized with the Vichy pro-Nazi government of Petain?

[DL]

But I don't understand why LePen would throw her own supporters under the bus by implying that the French played no role in the Holocaust. The typical FN voter would have supported the Vichy government and would have proudly helped the Nazis round up Jews. Why doesn't LePen take pride in her movement's history as being pro Nazi? If you are in Le Pen's universe you probably think there was nothing wrong with the Holocaust

[DL]

It's the French version of the Austrian myth that Hitler was German and Beethoven was Austrian

[DL]

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

[DL]

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.

[DL]

  How on earth are the Le Pen odds to win the presidency so high?

No one wants to give her no chance after Brexit and Trump.

That's an absurd comparison, polls on Brexit said it was going to be very close and half the polls in the final week had Brexit ahead. It's a myth that polls ever said a Remain win was guaranteed. Similarly the polls in the US has Clinton winning by 3% and she won the popular vote by 2%. How can anyone compare that to France where every poll has had LePen losing the second round by 20 points or more and very poll says that over 60% of the French would never vote for LePen under any circumstances

[DL]

It would be quite amusing if LePen missed the run off

[DL]

Its interesting how we have all been told repeatedly that LePen's vote is "rock solid" and that her voters are very unlikely to change their minds...and yet she has steadily lost ground over the last few weeks from high 20s to low 20s...i guess her vote isn't so solid after all!

Latest Ifop (April 13-17):
 
Macron 23% (+0.5%)
Le Pen 22.5% (-0.5%)
Fillon 19.5% (+0.5%)
Mélenchon 19.5% (+0.5%)
Hamon 7.5% (-0.5%)
Dupont-Aignan 3% (=)
Poutou 1.5% (-0.5%)
Lassalle 1% (=) 

[DL]

Hamon voters needs to stop wasting their vote if we want to win this thing over the three undesirables. They are absolutely blowing this for us. How can they be so short-sighted.

If I were French I would have initially supported Hamon...but if i wanted to vote "strategically" I would vote for Macron not Melenchon. I find Melenchon to be a scary demagogue who wants to wreck the European Union and wants France to adopt a pro-Putin foreign policy. I cannot go along with those dangerous positions. Macron has his faults, but he is by far the least of the four evils.

[DL]

OpinionWay

Marcon       23
Le Pen       22
Fillon         20 (-1)
Melenchon 19 (+1)
Hamon        8

Hamon vote holding up pretty well.  I thought he will be down to 5% by now. 

Actually the 23% for Macron represents a (+1) compared to the Opinion Way poll from yesterday

[DL]

Unless the polls in France are massively wrong - it seems to me that its almost certain that the run-off will be between Macron and LePen - the only suspense is 1. who will come in first in the first round - Macron or LePen and 2. will Melenchon overtake Fillon and drive him into a humiliating 4th place finish.

[DL]

It seems that it was a terrorist attack.

It won't change one single vote. Too little too late

[DL]

Fillon cancels his events for the last day of the official campaign.

That probably helps him. The more Fillon campaigns the more people are reminded of how despicable he is