France 2012: the official thread

[Antonio the Sixth]

Let's wait for the primary debates... I'm sure Aubry will trounce The Wimp.

[Niemeyerite]

I'm supporting Aubry now, definitely. I don't think that's good for Aubry supporters... I tend to support the loser candidate.

[big bad fab]

Let's wait for the primary debates... I'm sure Aubry will trounce The Wimp.

Hollande has strong polls, but, contrary to many medias, I think he appeared weak, on a personal level, during La Rochelle.
Royal seems to paralyze him...
And he has a real difficulty to be tough in front of other people, which could be quite bad during a debate...

[big bad fab]

OpinionWay-Fiducial poll for LCI and Le Figaro, 31 August-1 September 2011, sample 1311 leftist RVs out of a whole sample of 3202

Among those 1311 leftist RVs, 819 are socialist and 222 are the "likely voters" in the primary.

Among leftists / socialists / LVs
Hollande 44 / 48 / 42
Aubry 30 / 31 / 29
Royal 13 / 14 / 21
Montebourg 8 / 4 / 7
Valls 4 / 3 / 1
Baylet 1 / 0 / 0
don't know 11 / 4 / 0

Of course, LVs is a tiny sample, but Royal is at +7 in this sub-category ! Hollande at -4 and Aubry at -1.
Hollande has a good popularity, but it's a bit less clear in electability.
And what is surprising is that the first criterion for voting (ability to beat Sarkozy) is amazingly important for LVs especially. Interesting, as Hollande should be the best to fight against Sarkozy if you believe the other polls.

2nd round:
Hollande 57 / 57 / 53
Aubry 43 / 43 / 47

Among LVs, Aubry is at +9 ! Again, the sample is really tiny. But nothing is done.

Royal supporters are 25% behind Hollande and 51 % behind Aubry
Montebourg supporters are 42% behind Hollande and 39% behind Aubry.
Valls supporters 50% and 32%.
It may not mean anything, but it sounds pretty logical.

Same conclusion as before, Hollande still stronger, but not enough to be quiet, far from it.

[Antonio the Sixth]

So, no new poll again this week...

[big bad fab]

IFOP poll for le Journal du Dimanche, 30 August-2 September 2011, 1918 RVs out of a whole sample of 2036

CSA should be ashamed when you see the big samples of the latest IFOP, IPSOS, OpinionWay, even Harris polls...

Hollande 29 / Aubry 25 / Royal 17
Sarkozy 23.5 / 24 / 25
Le Pen 18.5 / 19.5 / 19
Borloo 6 / 6.5 / 8
Bayrou 6 / 6.5 / 8
Joly 6 / 6 / 9
Mélenchon 6 / 6 / 7
Villepin 2.5 / 3 / 3
Boutin 0.5 / 0.5 / 0.5
Dupont-Aignan 0.5 / 0.5 / 0.5
Nihous 0.5 / 1 / 1
Chevènement 0.5 / 1 / 1.5
Poutou 0.5 / 0.5 / 0.5
Arthaud 0 / 0 / 0

Second round:
Hollande 59
Sarkozy 41

Aubry 54
Sarkozy 46

Hollande stronger, Sarkozy not really on the rise anymore, though he is usually low in IFOP polls and Le Pen high.
(Royal is again behind Le Pen: she has been weak for
so many months now...
Borloo and Bayrou are down and we have now 4 candidates around 6 !
Beware, under 5%, no public money !!!

At last, one pollster takes Nihous into account. Difficult to say from whom he has stolen his points. Probably Le Pen and Dupont-Aignan.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, as it seemed the CSA poll was pretty biased against Le Pen and for Sarkozy. By averaging those two, we should hopefully come with a decent idea of how the race stands. I hope we'll start having more than one poll per week however...

[big bad fab]

OK, the US have Zogby.
France had CSA in 2007.
We may have LH2 for 2012 !!!!
(or is there really a classical polarization around the socialists and Sarkozy ?)

LH2 poll for Yahoo!, 2-3 September 2011, sample 959

Hollande 35 / Aubry 30 / Royal 18
Sarkozy 27 / 27 / 29
Le Pen 11 / 12 / 12

You've already fallen from your chair and your back is hurting ?
Fortunately, for the small ones, it's a bit less mad:

Borloo 6 / 8.5 / 10 (Borloo is the 2012 version of Bayrou 2007 if you follow LH2 )
Bayrou 6 / 6 / 8
Joly 6 / 4.5 / 10
Mélenchon 4 / 5 / 5
Arthaud 0.5 / 0.5 / 1
Poutou 0 / 0 / 0.5
Villepin 2 / 3.5 / 4
Boutin 2 / 2 / 2 ( after all, they may be right )
Dupont-Aignan 0.5 / 1 / 0.5
Nihous not even tested

Hollande and even Aubry at incumbent-Mitterrandesque levels ?
Sarkozy back towards his 2007 levels ?
Panzergirl almost as bad as Big Daddy the last time ?
Around 60% for the UMP and the (serious) PS candidates

Come on....

And, what is more, they've published it while I've already updated my tracker
I'm forced to update it again before posting it, as it's better to minimize its impact already this week with the big IFOP one.

[Niemeyerite]

Strange numbers from that LH2 poll... I wouldn't believe them.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Please Fab, tell me you're not including that crap in your tracker.

[big bad fab]

2012 Big Bad Tracker #18 - 5 September 2011

PROVISIONAL !                

My aggregated tracker with a generic socialist candidate is unchanged this week: 0.6 Hollande and 0.4 of Aubry, based on their current probability of being the PS candidate.
            
Each opinion poll is ponderated with its sample and loses a ponderation of 15% each week until October at least (it may change after the autumn).            

I haven't given a ponderation based on the quality of pollsters, as big changes have occurred in their teams, without any certainty that the 2007 rating is still OK.      
And this tracker is built more out of fun than out of scientific seriousness...       

      

5 September Aubry sub-tracker      

Arthaud   0,24
Poutou   0,37
Mélenchon   5,89
Chevènement   0,54
Aubry   26,49
Joly   5,44
Bayrou   6,50
Borloo   7,35
Villepin   3,30
Nihous   0,52
Boutin   0,89
Sarkozy   25,16
Dupont-Aignan   0,63
Le Pen   16,68
   
   
5 September Hollande sub-tracker

Arthaud   0,33
Poutou   0,36
Mélenchon   5,53
Chevènement   0,27
Hollande   30,13
Joly   5,83
Bayrou   6,21
Borloo   6,43
Villepin   2,47
Nihous   0,26
Boutin   0,89
Sarkozy   24,89
Dupont-Aignan   0,50
Le Pen   15,90


5 September generic PS candidate sub-tracker
   
Arthaud   0,29
Poutou   0,36
Mélenchon   5,67
Chevènement   0,38
PS   28,68
Joly   5,67
Bayrou   6,32
Borloo   6,80
Villepin   2,80
Nihous   0,36
Boutin   0,89
Sarkozy   25,00
Dupont-Aignan   0,55
Le Pen   16,21


Yes, I've included LH2.

This is a poll and I'm not able to ponderate French pollsters regarding to their accuracy in previous elections. We have too few data to do this.

Of course, Le Pen seems hugely undervalued hugely by LH2. PS seems hugely overvalued. Sarjozy is probably too high.

But, after all, when we all said that Harris Interactive was wrong about Panzergirl in January of February, then almost all the other pollsters put her very high.

Maybe LH2 has found a new trend, or some new trends.
Each pollster has its method, regarding this big problem: are people giving the same intentions for Girly than for Daddy ?

Maybe IFOP is overvaluing Panzergirl.
And CSA had Sarkozy at the same level, roughly.

We don't have enough polls to afford to drop one of them .
And it gives some suspense .
And a tracker is precisely here to give us an average of all this (LH2 counts "only" for a quarter of the total in the current results of our tracker).

[Niemeyerite]

Fab, the new French pbower???

(Just joking)

[big bad fab]

Fab, the new French pbower???

(Just joking)

Why are you so aggressive with me, Julio ?


Hold on, guys ! You are going to be happy !
Tonight, I'll modify my yesterday's tracker, as IPSOS has published, this morning, a new poll made this last week-end.

IPSOS poll for Radio-France, France-Télévisions, Le Monde, 2-3 September 2011, sample 963

Hollande 30 / Aubry 27 / Royal 19
Sarkozy 22 / 23 / 23
Le Pen 17 / 18 / 18
Borloo 7 / 7 / 9
Bayrou 6 / 6 / 7
Joly 5 / 6 / 7
Mélenchon 5 / 5.5 / 8.5
Arthaud 2 / 2.5 / 2
Poutou 0.5 / 0.5 / 0.5
Villepin 4.5 / 3.5 / 5
Dupont-Aignan 1 / 1 / 1
Boutin and Nihous not included

IPSOS is more in line with IFOP, with socialists high but not above 30, with Sarkozy under 25 and Le Pen still threatening for him.

Borloo is down and Villepin slightly on the rise.
Arthaud is really "high" in IPSOS polls. Joly is down here too.

The internals are as usual, with Hollande having a wider base than Aubry and a centre ground deeply splitted but very fluid.

IPSOS worries me a bit since the beginning of this 2012 season:
Boutin and Nihous still not included; Villepin higher in Hollande scenario than in Aubry one; Mélenchon higher in Aubry scenario than in Hollande one;... there are some weaknesses in what was the best pollster in 2007.
But, again, one pollster is right and we don't know which one and won't know until the end .

Anyway, with an addition of 963 people, the effect of LH2 will really be diluted.
Tonight, a new tracker .

[Antonio the Sixth]

Why "provisional" ? Should I include it in the graph or not ?

[Niemeyerite]

Fab, the new French pbower???

(Just joking)

Why are you so aggressive with me, Julio ?


Hold on, guys ! You are going to be happy !
Tonight, I'll modify my yesterday's tracker, as IPSOS has published, this morning, a new poll made this last week-end.

IPSOS poll for Radio-France, France-Télévisions, Le Monde, 2-3 September 2011, sample 963

Hollande 30 / Aubry 27 / Royal 19
Sarkozy 22 / 23 / 23
Le Pen 17 / 18 / 18
Borloo 7 / 7 / 9
Bayrou 6 / 6 / 7
Joly 5 / 6 / 7
Mélenchon 5 / 5.5 / 8.5
Arthaud 2 / 2.5 / 2
Poutou 0.5 / 0.5 / 0.5
Villepin 4.5 / 3.5 / 5
Dupont-Aignan 1 / 1 / 1
Boutin and Nihous not included

IPSOS is more in line with IFOP, with socialists high but not above 30, with Sarkozy under 25 and Le Pen still threatening for him.

Borloo is down and Villepin slightly on the rise.
Arthaud is really "high" in IPSOS polls. Joly is down here too.

The internals are as usual, with Hollande having a wider base than Aubry and a centre ground deeply splitted but very fluid.

IPSOS worries me a bit since the beginning of this 2012 season:
Boutin and Nihous still not included; Villepin higher in Hollande scenario than in Aubry one; Mélenchon higher in Aubry scenario than in Hollande one;... there are some weaknesses in what was the best pollster in 2007.
But, again, one pollster is right and we don't know which one and won't know until the end .

Anyway, with an addition of 963 people, the effect of LH2 will really be diluted.
Tonight, a new tracker .

This poll is more realistic, IMHO. I'm not aggresive. I like pBower hahaha...

[big bad fab]

2012 Big Bad Tracker #18 - 5 September 2011

THE REAL ONE !                

My aggregated tracker with a generic socialist candidate is unchanged this week: 0.6 Hollande and 0.4 of Aubry, based on their current probability of being the PS candidate.
            
Each opinion poll is ponderated with its sample and loses a ponderation of 15% each week until October at least (it may change after the autumn).            

I haven't given a ponderation based on the quality of pollsters, as big changes have occurred in their teams, without any certainty that the 2007 rating is still OK.      
And this tracker is built more out of fun than out of scientific seriousness...       

      

5 September Aubry sub-tracker      

Arthaud   0,71
Poutou   0,40
Mélenchon   5,81
Chevènement   0,43
Aubry   26,60
Joly   5,56
Bayrou   6,39
Borloo   7,28
Villepin   3,34
Nihous   0,41
Boutin   0,70
Sarkozy   24,71
Dupont-Aignan   0,71
Le Pen   16,95

   
   
5 September Hollande sub-tracker

Arthaud   0,67
Poutou   0,39
Mélenchon   5,42
Chevènement   0,22
Hollande   30,10
Joly   5,66
Bayrou   6,17
Borloo   6,55
Villepin   2,89
Nihous   0,21
Boutin   0,70
Sarkozy   24,29
Dupont-Aignan   0,60
Le Pen   16,13



5 September generic PS candidate sub-tracker
   
Arthaud   0,69
Poutou   0,39
Mélenchon   5,58
Chevènement   0,30
PS   28,70
Joly   5,62
Bayrou   6,26
Borloo   6,84
Villepin   3,07
Nihous   0,29
Boutin   0,70
Sarkozy   24,46
Dupont-Aignan   0,64
Le Pen   16,46



Now, you've got IPSOS in also.
So, this is the real, exhaustive, tracker. This one is fit to be included in your graph, Antonio.

LH2 is only 20% of it.
And as there are also some surprising things in the CSA and IPSOS polls, it's not so awful to have it too.

[big bad fab]

Harris Interactive poll for Le Parisien, 31 August-5 September 2011, sample 888

A smaller sample than usual for Harris.
And still no Boutin or Nihous
(I really don't understand them: Boutin isn't sure to have 500 signatures, but Dupont-Aignan even less as he failed in 2007 while she succeeded in 2002; as for Nihous, he is the surest, among small candidates, to have his signatures; at least, those who don't include Chevènement are a bit more coherent, as I think his noise about a possible candidacy is just a way to "be alive" on the political scene)

Hollande 28.5 / Aubry 24 / Royal 15
Sarkozy 23.5 / 24 / 24
Le Pen 18 / 20 / 20
Borloo 7 / 7 / 9
Bayrou 7 / 8 / 9
Joly 8 / 7 / 10
Mélenchon 3 / 5 / 7
Arthaud 1 / 1 / 0
Poutou 0 / 0 / 1
Villepin 3 / 3 / 4
Dupont-Aignan 1 / 1 / 1

When I've put 0, it's because Harris says "<1". The problem is that even with 0.5, we are above 100%... Why do they use .5 (which is, in itself, a good idea) but not for some Poutou's and Arthaud's results
Polls aren't a mathematical object, I guess

Anyway, Borloo down, Bayrou up / Joly up, Mélenchon down : this may be coherent, but the latter pair of results isn't in line with other pollsters.
And a difference of 13.5 between Hollande and Royal ? Yeah, she'd be a bad candidate, but still...

The good news is that pollsters are active again, though I hope the PS primaries won't lead to a halt in polls for the presidential election itself.

The bad news is that, apart from IFOP, all the others seem to have weakenesses, small ones for IPSOS, OpinionWay and CSA, bigger for LH2 and Harris (Sofres and BVA ? Well, we don't know for sure, their publications are so scarce...).

This is the exact situation where a tracker is needed .

[Antonio the Sixth]

Please forgive my lateness, but now I'm back at work in Sciences Po, so it's harder to find enough time to update the trackers. Anyways, here there are.


Aubry :




Hollande :




As you can see, the last two weeks have seen bold, and probably utterly meaningless swings. Now that the database is more dense, we should get back a well-functioning tracker. I didn't raise the threshold above 30%, because I don't think for one second Hollande or anyone else could realistically break it (and also because it would further "crush" the little candidates). The vertical line you see in the middle of the graph indicates the second round of PS primaries, which will be held on October 16. Concretely, it means that once we reach this line we'll have only one graph left.

[Math]

Please forgive my lateness, but now I'm back at work in Sciences Po, so it's harder to find enough time to update the trackers.

Hope you took the US elections and political behavior class ;-)

[Antonio the Sixth]

Please forgive my lateness, but now I'm back at work in Sciences Po, so it's harder to find enough time to update the trackers.

Hope you took the US elections and political behavior class ;-)

Sadly, I didn't. Registaration is always very stressful, there were a lot of passionating courses, I also had to take the hours of each course into account, etc... So I didn't get everything as I wanted, but that doesn't matter, since there's still so much to learn.

[big bad fab]

In the second year, I had a course on UK politics with Jacques Leruez (pretty satisfactory: it was the year when Maggie was ousted ) and a course in English on US social sciences (not really my first choice...., though I tried to slip a bit, by picking a big study on TR ).

I was far luckier in the 3rd year, with a course on Central Asia with Olivier Roy (YESSSSSSSSSS !!!!!!! My best course ever !) and a course in English on Soviet politics with Marie Mendras.
My exact first choices .
So, let's stay hopeful, Antonio .

What is your section, Antonio ? Something like the old PES (politique économique et sociale) ?

[Antonio the Sixth]

In the second year, I had a course on UK politics with Jacques Leruez (pretty satisfactory: it was the year when Maggie was ousted ) and a course in English on US social sciences (not really my first choice...., though I tried to slip a bit, by picking a big study on TR ).

I was far luckier in the 3rd year, with a course on Central Asia with Olivier Roy (YESSSSSSSSSS !!!!!!! My best course ever !) and a course in English on Soviet politics with Marie Mendras.
My exact first choices .
So, let's stay hopeful, Antonio .

What is your section, Antonio ? Something like the old PES (politique économique et sociale) ?

Sections ? I guess it doesn't work that way anymore. We could basically choose every course, but the choices were disconnected for each other.

The two main courses (4h/week) were law (we had to choose betwen around 5 different course, I chose "La Vème République : droit constitutionnel"), and a "transdiciplinary" one, to choose between two : "Histoire et droit des Etats" and "Espace mondial". I had no choice but picking the latter, the first one being in conflict with the law course, but I don't regret my choice, as the prof, Bertrand Badie, is quite passionating.

Apart from that (and the languages), we had to choose :
- a "humanités" courses (I picked one about metaphysics)
- an "atelier artistique" (as last year, I took theatre),
- an "approfondissement" (I took a History about political organizations and engagement)
- an "enseignement électif", where I picked "making sense of European societies" in English (didn't really choose, I made a mistake and had to rescind registration in the course I had initially chosen).

[big bad fab]

There were 4 sections, long ago, or 4 tracks or streams or branches, as you wish:
- SP (service public), in order to prepare ENA and other civil service schools,
- EcoFi (économique et financière), not yet another business school at that time,
- PES (politique, économique et sociale), for future teachers, journalists, communication specialists
- RI (relations internationales).

It seems to be far more complicated now.
Will you specialize only in fourth and fifth years ?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, nowadays Sciences Po uses the European LMD (license-master-doctorat) system. Licence lasts 3 years and is common for everybody. Then you pick your master, among a long list, and you graduate after 2 years. There are two kind of masters : masters "pro" which prepare to exerting an actual job (or pursuing professional studies in other schools, like ENA) and masters "recherche" which lead to a thesis and the doctorate after 3 years.

As for the old system, I would certainly have picked PES, indeed.

[big bad fab]

ViaVoice poll for Libération, 8-9 September 2011, 275 self-declared socialists among 501 self-declared leftists among a whole sample of 1007

We don't have all the results yet.

Among the whole sample / among leftists / among socialists
Hollande 33 / 40 / 49
Aubry 15 / 22 / 24
Royal 10 / 12 / 9
Montebourg 3 / ? / ?
Valls 6 / ? / ?
Baylet 1 / ? / ?
none of them 18 / ? / ?
don't know 14 / ? / ?

Popularity (among the whole sample I guess):
Hollande 55 (=)
Aubry 45 (-4)
Royal 33 (-1)
Valls 30 (+4)
Montebourg 27 (+3)

No big change here, with Hollande still far ahead.

But the debates may well have an impact for Montebourg and Valls if they are efficient.
And Aubry will of course perform better: if she performs far better (but only in this case), then she can break Hollande's momentum.
I'm repeating myself...