As we get closer to the second
round of the presidential elections, the deep divisions within the population
and the political parties are getting starker.
- - 55% of the
population voted neither for Macron nor for Le Pen; what will they do on May 10[1]?
- - Traditional
parties and their candidates gathered just 27% of the votes; how will they
rebuild, starting with these elections?
- - 84% of the French
were unhappy with the Hollande government and presumably wanted change, but for
many Le Pen offers too much and Macron not enough.
The above 55% have a choice: pick another candidate or
abstain. It is always difficult for a
losing candidate to recommend that his supporters vote for somebody else,
unless of course this helps him advance (or save) his career.
So far, this reluctance combined with voters’ ambivalence
about the remaining candidates has led to a rise in abstention expectations for
the second round.
Melanchon refuses to endorse either Macron or Le Pen
while Dupont Aignan is rallying Le Pen.
The most recent polls indicate that 28% of Fillon’s, 45% of Melanchon’s,
and 29% of the Hamon’s voters intend to abstain.
At present, Macron is currently holding to a greater
percentage of left-wing voters (40% of Melanchon’s) than Le Pen is to Fillon’s (29%). Combined with the above abstention levels, this
makes Macron difficult to beat.
If we assume that those who voted for the outliers (Poutou,
Asselineau, Arthaud[2]) will vote for Le Pen,
then the second round should yield a 59%-41% victory for Macron[3].
This clear margin of victory is not rock solid, for
several reasons:
- - Besides his 24%, Macron
needs votes from Les Républicains (which
probably views him as too soft and linked to the cabale which plotted the fatal
attack on its champion, Fillon), from the revolutionary Left (which has even
less in common with him) and from the socialists (who have nowhere else to go
if they want to salvage a future, but who probably feel betrayed). In other words, Macron needs the votes of
people who don’t share much with him except a dislike of Le Pen.
- - He is not a
seasoned campaigner, he doesn’t work a crowd like Marine Le Pen and yes, he is
very young and it shows at times.
- - The May 3 debate with
Le Pen will be a high stake one. If he
loses 4% of the Fillon votes to her, and if she convinces half of the Melanchon
voters tempted by abstention to vote for her, she wins by the narrowest of
margin.
- - Even if he were
to squeeze by, he needs a clear victory to herd the parliamentary cats into a
working coalition.
The election is Macron to lose, he shouldn’t, but he
could.
[1] Date of the second round of the presidential
elections.
[2] Representing respectively the New
Anticapitalist Party, the Republican Union and Workers’ Struggle).
[3] We also use the same polls'estimates of how
Macron and Le Pen will win over supporters of the candidates who lost in the first
round.
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