Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Setting The Scene

Just taking a quick glance at today's TNS/Sofres poll [note: French language] for the French presidential election, and if one thing seems pretty clear it's that the immediate calculations made after the first round seem to be born out by the poll results. I had some questions whether Jean-Marie Le Pen's voters (of which only the hardcore remained) could be won over, but apparently 62% of them solidly intend to vote for Sarkozy in the second round. (Surprisingly, Ségolène Royal stands to pick up 22% of them, probably out of spite towards Sarkozy for having "Le Pen-ized" his campaign.) Another interesting result: Royal wins the Bayrou voters, 46-25%, with 29% expressing no intention.

Now, neither Le Pen nor Bayrou has made any endorsements for the second round, so both of these numbers could change. Le Pen plans to make a statement on May 1st, at the FN's annual Joan of Arc Festival; Bayrou has refused to tip his hand in spite of both candidates actively courting his electorate, if not necessarily him. My hunch is that neither will make an endorsement of a candidate. What remains to be seen is whether they will "free" their voters, or call for "une vote blanche", ie. a blank ballot, which is functionally equivalent to an abstention.

Two other interesting, if not surprising, results. First, of those who have already decided to vote for Royal, 54% will do so out of opposition to Sarkozy rather than support for Royal, bearing out the theory of an "anti-Sarko" vote. And second, 17% of those questioned have not yet firmly decided for whom they will vote. Which means that at 51-49% in Sarkozy's favor, nothing is yet decided.

I don't plan to follow the polls that closely, but it is interesting to see that all the conventional wisdoms seem to be holding up.

Posted by Judah in:  La Presidentielle   

Comments (0)

e-mail  |  del.icio.us  |  digg