Update
4.00am. The sampled count result is in: Macron 65.1%, Le Pen 34.9%.
3.15am. Actually, what will be published at 4am will be the sampled early count of actual voting, which proved pinpoint accurate last time. Exit polls are coming out now, and have Macron at around 63%.
2.15am. I’m giving this a bump in case anyone’s about who wishes to discuss tonight’s results from France. Exit polls will be out at 4am.
Earlier:
We’re now two days away from the run-off election for the French presidency, and a bit under five weeks away from the general election in Britain. A ban on polling in the final days of French election kicks in around about now, and they suggest that centrist contender Emmanuel Macron’s 60-40 lead over far right candidate Marine Le Pen as of a week ago has widened a little as the big day approaches. The polls were eye-wateringly consistent and accurate ahead of the first round election, and have remained so on the former count at least.
Britain had a dry run with yesterday’s council elections, the results of which poured cold water on any notion that the polls might be as badly astray this time as they were in 2015. In other words, they delivered unprecedented victories for the Conservatives and unmitigated disaster for Labour, as well as reinforcing the impression of a mass exodus from Ukip to the Tories. The poll aggregate below, conducted without any clever-dickery in relation to weighting and bias adjustment, records the Conservatives at 44.8% (compared with 36.9% in 2015), Labour at 28.3% (30.4%), the Liberal Democrats at 10.5% (7.9%) and Ukip at 6.8% (12.6%).
The first chart goes back to the last election, the second to the beginning of March. Among the things the latter makes clearer is that a spike to the Conservatives after the election was announced has in fact levelled off, and that some vaguely encouraging results for Labour a week or so ago haven’t been maintained.
Vive le Macron!
Vive la Brigitte!
Aux armes citoyens!
Contre Marine Le Pen!
The collapse of the UKIP vote in the UK local council elections has indeed seem to have solidified the Brexiters towards the Conservatives. The pro-remain voters will be divided among a few parties.
In metropolitan France, polls are open 8:00 to 20:00 Sunday, which is 8 hours behind East Australian time (they are on daylight saving). So polls close 04:00 Monday AEST. We should know the result over breakfast tomorrow.
Lunchtime turnout lower than 1st round and 2012 election, but only slightly and nothing like the en masse absentia from the left required to give Le Pen a chance.
http://www.france24.com/en/20170507-liveblog-live-france-presidential-election-macron-le-pen-second-round-run-off
Looks like a good night for Angela Merkel in Schleswig-Holstein:
https://twitter.com/Wahlrecht_de/status/861249782005858304/photo/1
The 4am results aren’t exit polls. They’re estimates based on a sample of actual votes cast (from memory, 200 votes from each of 50 polling places.) Ipsos’ was very accurate in the first round – got pretty much everyone within 0.5%.
And indeed, exit polls seem to have it around 63-37.
Le Pen speaks with Macron and concedes defeat. Polls closed 15 minutes ago. Is that a record?
Background article (and useful timeline of the lead up to the September German Federal Election) –
http://www.dw.com/en/polls-open-in-schleswig-holstein-state-election/a-38738882
From France24
During an interview afterwards, one senior party official explained to me that a new movement would now be formed – he didn’t give a name for it.
How about The Party of Yesterday’s Men and Women?
Vive la France! With the polls closed and Macron at 65/35, it is interesting that the result is actually better than the 60/40 most polls were predicting a week ago.
This suggests that the late hacking attack and email dump had no significant effect, other than possibly some suppression effect on voter turnout. Though with leftists like Melanchonn calling on leftist voters to stay away there are other possible explanations of the turnout. Either way, what a difference it makes when a responsible media and election authority refuses to publish dubious material and cautions people against it, rather than stoking paranoia. Hillary Clinton must be grinding her teeth by comparison.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tony-blair-jeremy-corbyn-unpopular-labour-party-general-election-a7721561.html
Tony Blair seems to be even more popular than Jeremy Corbyn, polling finds.
I wasn’t sure what sort of impact the news of the email leaks would have on Macron, but we might never know because France had a 48 hours blackout period and this news was leaked within that period.
Raaraa
No but the last polls and actual result moved towards Macron. So not reporting the Wiki-Gate other than to say (correctly) that Macron had been hacked by Russia, may have worked in his favour. A week ago it was 60/40, then it moved to 62/48 in the last poll before WikiGate, and it then reached 65/35 on the day. Given that these polls seem to have been fairly accurate, I find that encouraging.
Raaraa / Soc
Some analysis of Twitter traffic I saw suggests the release of the e-mail may actually helped Macron.
Totally separate question – who did the decrease in turn out help?
[ Some analysis of Twitter traffic I saw suggests the release of the e-mail may actually helped Macron. ]
Would not surprise me. The only info out there so far seems to be that it happened, nothing much about content.
Good result that Le Pen got buried.
Imacca
Yep. But I have limited confidence that Macron will achieve much.
1989, Place de la Concorde, where heads rolled 2oo years before.
Afro-American Jessye Norman (Augusta, Georgia 1945) sings the Marseillaise at the bicentennial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3vGVR770WE
(Side story – the late of the head of the Department in which I worked was married to a woman of Australian French descent. The French came to bypass the British wool buyers and source their wool directly. One July 4, I arrived for dinner with a bunch of red white and blue flowers tied in red white and blue ribbons. She was gracious, but took pains to point to the Fleur-de-lis brooch on her left shoulder strap – she was a royalist! Alors, que peut-on dire?)
Raaraa
“Tony Blair seems to be even more popular than Jeremy Corbyn, polling finds.”
Bubonic plague seems to be even more popular than Jeremy Corbyn.
The one saving grace of the UK election is that Corbyn will finally be put out of his misery.
Thanks. I think perhaps people are starting to see through the bullshit and is angry at the meddling by foreign agents, both by the leaks and the bots planting fake news on social media.
kakuru @ #22 Monday, May 8, 2017 at 10:13 am
Actually thanks for highlighting that, and I wish I can edit my earlier comment! I have accidentally completely misquoted that article due to a typo. Tony Blair less popular than Corbyn I mean to say!
“As elections were not held throughout the country, the BBC calculated a Projected National Vote Share (PNV), which aims to assess what the council results indicate the UK-wide vote would be “if the results were repeated at a general election”. The BBC’s preliminary Projected National Vote Share was 38% for the Conservatives, 27% for Labour, 18% for the Liberal Democrats and 5% for UKIP, with others on around 12%.[21]”
This compares with previous election of 37.8% for the Conservatives, 31.2% for Labour, 12.9% for Ukip, 8.1% for Lib Dem and others at 10%. The local council election results are quite positive for Labour – the swings seen there are the wing since 2012, which has been described as “Labour’s high water mark”
So Conservatives gain 0.2%, Labour lose 4.2%, Lib Dem gain 9.9%, Ukip lose 7.9% and others gain 2%.
I’ve modeled this as flat swings across the board, which probably holds pretty true for Labor and Conservatives, but is doubtless a pretty terrible approximation for UKIP, as this gives them a negative vote count in many electorates. I also modeled all 3 of The Greens, SNP and PC getting +2%. This would be an absolutely fine assumption for PC and SNP, throwing the Greens in makes it a bit less valid, but it should suffice.
Total results?
Tories gain 4 seats, for 334/650.
UKIP loses it’s seat.
Labor loses 20, down to 212.
Lib Dems gain 16, up to 24.
Plaid Cymru gain 1, up to 4.
No change for SNP, the Independent and no change in Ireland.
This election is not over yet, if the local council elections are any guide. The Conservatives are projected to have a majority of 9 in a 650 house and no real options for a coalition. A small swing away from the Tories in the next month could see them lose their majority, and likely government.
@ William (or anyone). Is there a standard way to model swings in a situation like this, when you have parties with significant regional variability, and huge swings. I could model it multiplicatively, i.e. “UKIP lose 60% of their vote in each seat”. But then I could run into problems if I try to apply “Lib Dems multiply their vote by 2.2”
Raaraa
” Tony Blair less popular than Corbyn I mean to say!”
Blair might be unpopular NOW. But Blair won three general elections – including two landslides.
Bu contrast, it’s looking increasingly likely that Corbyn will take his party backwards – not something a party leader would want to be remembered for.
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/861346889932963846/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Flive%2Fworld-europe-39823865
An interesting infograph showing where votes from the first round candidate ended up in the second round. Majority of eliminated candidate voters gave their vote to Macron, and those that didn’t, most abstained rather than vote for Le Pen.
However, I can’t understand the really tiny portion that went from Macron to Le Pen.
Kakuru
Not a biggest fan of either now (though still preferred over any conservative). Just stating the news though.
Interesting infograph – it also shows that a (slight) majority of Melenchon voters ended up voting for Macron. A sliver of Melenchon voters went for Le Pen (these would be the rabid anti-establishment/Frexit types), and the rest stayed home and sulked.
I think the disdain for the left is unfortunate there. More of Melenchon voters went for Macron over than of Fillon voters.
“More of Melenchon voters went for Macron over than of Fillon voters.”
Yes, I found that a bit surprising.
I suspect the majority of Melenchon voters there were former PS voters who couldn’t get themselves to vote for Hamon. Not sure if it is Hamon unconvincing or Hollande to blame.
Macron now has to hope that the assembly elections in a month or so will provide a majority that support his agenda. Otherwise he will be in a bind.
Voice Endeavour @ #25 Monday, May 8th, 2017 – 10:21 am
VE
It will be fascinating if there is a further swing against the Tories (plenty of time for it to happen) and Corbyn puts together a coalition government and becomes Prime Minister – certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility. There would be a superabundance of egg on very many faces.
GBP currently at around AU$1.75, after being around $1.60 prior to the election being called. Come on $1.80!
VE
England wide vote?
Donald Trump has finally told the truth about the “Big election win”.
“Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Congratulations to Emmanuel Macron on his big win today as the next President of France. I look very much forward to working with him!
4:52 AM – 8 May 2017”
Too bad it wasn’t his 🙂
Ajm
“There would be a superabundance of egg on very many faces.”
Starting with mine. Happily, I’m confident my face will remain egg-free. Corbyn is tanking, and he’s taking UK Labour down with him.
Corbyn becoming PM may well be “not beyond the bounds of possibility”, if by that you mean “not statistically impossible”.
Let it go. Corbyn is toast. UK Labour might have a chance at the election-after-next, if Brexit sinks the UK economy and/or Labour chooses a leader who is actually electable.
@ Ctar1 – I’m not sure what you mean.
Likely (as there were no Irish councils and thus no Irish data), they actually mean Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), rather than the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Ireland).
It is very unlikely that those numbers were talking about England. 12% ‘others’ in England would be ridiculous. Others in England are polling around 4-7%, and got 5.1% last election. By contrast, others are polling above 50% in Scotland and around 15% in Wales due to the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru.
@ Kakuru – care to address my above post. Are you disagreeing with:
* The BBC’s analysis of likely General Election percentages by party.
* The applicability of using local council election data as an indicator of general election results.
* My analysis on how the percentages will transfer to seats.
VE
I see “Labor loses 20, down to 212.” Don’t know how accurate your projection is, but this is not a great result for the major Opposition party.
I also recall this ‘take’ on the council elections, written by one William Bowe: “In other words, they delivered unprecedented victories for the Conservatives and unmitigated disaster for Labour”.
I fail to see why the general election will be anything other than another unmitigated disaster for Labour.
This is quite a good NY Times article that includes final results and the geographic and social distribution of Macron and Le Pen voters. The pattern is fairly clear.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05/07/world/europe/france-election-results-maps.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
@ Kakaru
Please reconcile the closeness of the result, if the local council elections are to be used as a guide (Tories currently on 334 seats with 325 needed for government, and having no natural coalition partners) with lack of closeness implied by the statement below.
“Corbyn becoming PM may well be “not beyond the bounds of possibility”, if by that you mean “not statistically impossible”. Let it go. Corbyn is toast.”
You are massively overreaching, because of your personal dislike for Corbyn. pay attention to the data, not your feelings.
VE
My feelings are based on the data. I have no personal dislike for Corbyn. I assess him as a dud based on his poor standing across the UK.
I want UK Labour to win. Failing that, I want them to gain seats. Currently, the former looks nigh impossible, and the latter unlikely. Labour’s poor showing might have something to do with Corbyn.
@ Kakuru – Labour’s reduced polling percentage is purely to do with the Lib Dems not being as completely terrible this election as last. Labour does not need to gain seats, all they need to do is make sure that the Tories lose seats, because every other party in UK politics (bar UKIP, who is expected to lose their only seat) will not enter into a coalition with the hard Brexiting Tories.
The parties that would vote confidence in May have lose 7.7% of the vote since last election, if the BBC is correct. They have likely gained 3 seats due to first past the post idiocy.
Think about it this way. UKIP has lost 7.9%. Most of those voters would have gone to the Tories. So why are the Tories only up 0.2%? Is there 7.7% of the population who voted Tory last election but are now voting Lib Dem/Labour? What happens now, if Tories continue to abandon the party for the Lib Dems and Labour? There really aren’t that many UKIPers left to make up for further losses of voters.
First past the post can lead to many odd things happening. Soft/No brexit parties command 57% of the vote. At the moment it appears they would be tripped up by FPTP, but saying things like “Corbyn is toast” are overreach.
The media in Britain hate Corbyn. And fair enough, he hates them too. But it means you can’t believe everything they say about him. The fall in Labour’s vote is more about the rise of the SNP and the resurrection of the Lib Dems than it is about Corbyn, his policies, his detractors in the partyroom or their policies.
VE
“The media in Britain hate Corbyn. And fair enough, he hates them too. But it means you can’t believe everything they say about him. The fall in Labour’s vote is more about the rise of the SNP and the resurrection of the Lib Dems than it is about Corbyn, his policies, his detractors in the partyroom or their policies.”
Two points:
(1) I’m not paying much heed to what the media says about Corbyn. I’m only looking at the polls. For UK Labour, the polls are dire.
(2) Saying the fall in Labour’s vote has little to do with Corbyn comes across to me as special pleading. Why are the SNP, Lib Dems etc gaining at Labour’s expense, and why isn’t Labour gaining at the Tories expense? You seem to be conflating cause and effect.
Macron is now at 66.06%. He was at 65.82% without the overseas vote. For reference, the vote in Australia was 89-11%, with 7823 formal votes.
Possibly one of the things that might get lost in the detail is that 11% of those who cast a ballot voted informally.
With regards to Schleswig-Holstein, after a long night, CDU + Greens just made it to a majority. This means that they don’t have to rely on the liberal FDP for their coalition. CDU-Green coalitions are relatively common at the state level.
Heard that French turnout was 74%, the lowest since 1969. I haven’t seen the exact data though.
Joe,
I find it odd that CDU would prefer to side with the Grune over FDP, but they might be limited on options as FDP fell a bit short.
It doesn’t sound impossible though for a CDU-FDP-SSW coalition as a CDU-Grune is just barely a majority and might be less stable.
Since we are on slightly off-topic elections, tomorrow we see a British Columbia election in Canada where a conservative Liberal incumbent fend off against a centre-left NDP (the Conservatives is minor party here, and the Liberals are further to the right of the Canadian federal party), and a South Korean presidential election, where the previous president was impeached due to a political scandal.