Live Commentary
9:21am Tuesday Final first round results: 27.8% Macron, 23.2% Le Pen, 22.0% Melenchon, 7.1% Zemmour and 4.8% Pecresse, who finished just ahead of the Greens’ Jadot (4.6%). Macron and Le Pen advance to the April 24 runoff, with Macron the clear favourite.
12:01pm Narrowing of the Le Pen Melenchon gap with 97% still in. Now 27.6% Macron, 23.4% Le Pen and 22.0% Melenchon. I believe this reflects late counting from Paris.
11:35am Very slow counting of the final votes, but with 97% in, Macron has 27.4%, Le Pen 24.0% and Melenchon 21.7%.
8:16am With 88% counted, Macron leads with 27.4%, Le Pen has 24.9% and Melenchon 20.5%. The Le Pen-Melenchon gap is expected to close further.
7:09am A new projection has Melenchon closing in on Le Pen; he now trails her by just 23.0% to 22.2%. These projections are of the final result.
6:55am Here are the official French results with 71% reporting. I don’t think Paris is in yet, so Macron’s lead over Le Pen will expand.
6:31am Hungarian results below updated to reflect final results, slightly improving the opposition’s position.
6:18am This is better for Macron than pre-election polls expected. He’s doing two points better (28% vs 26%), with Le Pen about as expected with 23%. Melenchon is about four points better than expected (21% vs 17%), Zemmour is on 7.3% vs around 9% expected, and Pecresse is on just 5.0% vs 8% expected. So the overall right-wing vote is far less than what the polls expected. On this basis, Macron is the clear favourite to win the April 24 runoff.
6:10am Monday This is a projection of final French results given current figures.
Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is an honorary associate at the University of Melbourne. His work on electoral matters for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.
The first round of the French presidential election is today, with all polls closed by 4am AEST Monday. The top two candidates will advance to an April 24 runoff. The abysmal polling at the April 3 Hungarian election could have implications for polling in other countries, so I will discuss Hungary first.
The far-right Fidesz crushed the united opposition by a 54.1-34.5 margin in the 93-seat proportional representation list. This 20-point margin far exceeded even the best polls for Fidesz, which gave it about a ten-point lead. The worst polls gave Fidesz just a 3-5 point lead, with a late poll tied.
Fidesz won the 106 first-past-the-post seats 87-19, on a vote margin of 52.5-36.9. Overall, Fidesz won 135 of the 199 seats (up two on 2018), the opposition 57 (down eight) and an extreme right party six by exceeding the 5% threshold for the PR seats. This is the fourth successive term for Fidesz since they were first elected in 2010.
Vladimir Putin congratulated Prime Minister Viktor Orbán after this crushing victory. As I wrote last time, Putin and Orbán have been decade-long friends. The US Conservative Political Action Conference will convene in Hungary in May – far-right comradeship.
French polls
For the first round, incumbent Emmanuel Macron leads with about 26%, with the far-right Marine Le Pen on about 23% and the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon on about 17%. The more far-right Éric Zemmour and conservative Valérie Pécresse have continued to fade to below 10%. It’s unlikely but possible for Mélenchon to knock out Le Pen, with one poll having him just three points behind her.
An AtlasIntel poll conducted April 4-6 gave Le Pen a 50.5-49.5 runoff lead over Macron, but all other recent polls still give Macron a runoff lead, with the average at around 52-48 to Macron. French polls in 2017 understated Macron, but Hungarian polls badly understated the far-right. If candidates under or overperform their polls in the first round, that’s likely a clue as to which candidates will under or overperform in the runoff. Macron still beats Mélenchon by about 57-43.
I think the most important reason for Macron’s recent slump against Le Pen is inflation; people hate seeing price rises on food and petrol. This is an anti-incumbent factor that is probably assisting Labor in Australia’s federal election.
Other matters: Ukraine, the US, the UK and Pakistan
After Putin invaded Ukraine, the Russian ruble plunged against the US dollar owing to Western sanctions. But the ruble has now rebounded to where it was before the invasion began. As long as Western countries continue to buy Russian oil and gas, the sanctions are proving impotent.
Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed Thursday by the US Senate to replace Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court when he retires by early July. The vote was 53-47, with three Republicans joining all 50 Democrats. Jackson is the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, but she replaces a left-wing judge and will make no difference to the 6-3 right majority.
Inflation has likely caused the UK Conservatives to again drop further behind Labour after recovering from Partygate, with Labour’s lead in recent polls up from low single to mid-single figures. Chancellor Rishi Sunak has come under scrutiny after revelations that his wife used a loophole to avoid paying tax. UK local elections will occur May 5.
Former Pakistani cricketer Imran Khan became Prime Minister, but was defeated in a parliamentary no-confidence vote Saturday. The current opposition leader is likely to win a parliamentary vote Monday to become Pakistan’s next PM.
“French polls in 2017 understated Macron, but Hungarian polls badly understated the far-right.”… But remember that Orbán was the target of electoral fraud allegations, not so for Macron.
Is it possible just possible that all the following results can happen:
1. Far-right Marine Le Pen and the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon knock out Macron in first round of French Presidential election.
2. Then Let Pen wins French Presidential election on 24th April
3. BOJO’s Tories score resounding victory in May Council elections crushing Labour party.
4. Then to top it all Morrison wins another Miracle election.
5. After that Republicans win both HOR and Senate elections.
And Bolsonaro is re-elected as Brazil’s president late this year.
A danger for Le Pen is that the polls have understated Zemmour due to the shyness factor. If he over performes it will likely come straight off Le Pen, which could open the way for Melanchon.
This is from my local polling booth*:
these are preliminary results, but are likely to be pretty accurate.
* Note, I cannot vote in France.
Happy to see Le Pen did not win my booth, but she won a lot around us. People in the regions are not happy?
Somebody got busy to knock this poll out so quickly 🙂
Europe Elects
@EuropeElects
France, Ipsos-Sopra Steria poll:
Presidential run-off
Macron (EC-RE): 54% (-12)
Le Pen (RN-ID): 46% (+12)
+/- vs. 2017 election
Fieldwork: 10 April 2022 (after 20:00)
Sample size: 2,000
More: https://europeelects.eu/2022/04/10/202
As of 2300 French Time Macron on 27.6%
Le Pen is beating Melenchon by only 0.8%, 23% to 22.2%
Another quick 2nd round poll conducted tonight
Europe Elects
@EuropeElects
·
48m
France, OpinionWay-Kéa Partners poll:
Presidential run-off
Macron (EC-RE): 54% (-12)
Le Pen (RN-ID): 46% (+12)
+/- vs. 2017 election
Fieldwork: 10 April 2022 (after 20:00)
Sample size: 1,739
More: https://europeelects.eu/2022/04/10/202
So Macron is winning in East and West of France whereas Le Pen is winning in North and South of France.
”
Vivatavita
@vivatavita
In French we don’t say « useless piece of shit » we say « Yannick Jadot » and I think that’s beautiful
”
It is astonishing that Le Pen is no longer Yannick Jadot. 🙂
From The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/04/10/macron-victory-liberal-democracy-ukraine/
At least Zemmour helped everyone avoid the PR coup of Le Pen leading the first round.
It must be very galling for Melenchon voters to have to hold their nose and vote for Macron just to beat Le Pen even if it intellectually makes sense, and France isn’t a country with good voter turnout as it is. Macron has a balancing act over the next fortnight to “get out the vote” amongst Melenchon supporters without turning away his right wing support.
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Arkysays:
Monday, April 11, 2022 at 12:57 pm
At least Zemmour helped everyone avoid the PR coup of Le Pen leading the first round.
It must be very galling for Melenchon voters to have to hold their nose and vote for Macron just to beat Le Pen even if it intellectually makes sense, and France isn’t a country with good voter turnout as it is. Macron has a balancing act over the next fortnight to “get out the vote” amongst Melenchon supporters without turning away his right wing support.
”
Arky
Imagine this scenario and it happened in Queensland. I can’t remember whether it is State or Federal election.
There were only 3 candidates in an electorate and they were from LNP, One Nation and ALP.
ALP came third in on PV and I think ON came first. What do you think ALP voters did. They Preferenced LNP candidate over ON candidate, which was right thing to do.
LNP candidate won because of ALP voter preferences.
I would think that Zenmour voters would split so as to bring Le Pen to rough parity with Macron, but how does she win the majority of the rest? All of those candidates have come out against her
This is desperate stuff. Whilst no great fan of Macron, her winning would be an absolute disaster for the EU, NATO and the West at large (let alone France itself). Well, it depends on what lense one has i suppose: if she wins and Russian sanctions basically get a hole punched through them, then arguably there is impetus for a shitty deal where Russia annexes east and south Ukraine but leaves the rest. Not great for Ukraine, but mass economic shock potentially mitigated.
On the other hand, if Macron wins and sanctions stay intact… then as long as Putin can survive on BRICS revenue he might be quite tempted to switch off the gas to the EU and plunge them and the world into economic chaos. Dems get slaughtered in the midterms, the world goes into a stagflationary 70s mess and the stage is set for the orange saviour to come back as the guy who can make peace with Russia. That would be some gameplan, wouldnt it
This decade is shaping up as potentially one of the darkest ones in a very long time, i fear