I'm a French reader, and while it would be entirely in character to haughtily explain how American parvenus can't understand our politics, I must say that this is, actually, a pretty solid summary. Entertaining without feeling disrespectful, too.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine might have helped Le Pen by sending energy prices into the stratosphere, playing into her campaign theme about the high cost of living. Add in Zemmour making her look moderate, and you have a situation where developments that should have destroyed her campaign actually saving it.
I still think Macron will be reelected, but it will be much closer than in 2017. (I'm thinking 54-46.)
Pretty fair analysis, I think, and that pie chart is just plain awesome!
I think that the run-off election will be a little closer than Damian does (maybe 53-47, or possibly even 52-48), but so long as Le Pen loses, the end result will be good.
Another thing I noticed--the number of self-owns about the French election by right-wingers in this country. Some are trumpeting the fact that Le Pen made it to the run-off; others are trying to criticize our system by pointing out the France had its results very quickly. Clearly, they were blissfully unaware of the fact that continental France is all in the same time zone, the French make it much easier than us to vote (including automatic voter enrollment), the election takes place on a Sunday specifically so that everyone CAN vote, they don't have the anachronistic electoral college, you don't have to wait hours in line to vote, etc., etc.
I'm emboldened to pluck two data points and draw a line between them: France's presidential-vote shifts from 2017 to 2022 look like the US's from 2016 to 2020. The '20 and '22 presidential elections were/are consolidated versions of the '16 and '17 presidential elections. The major candidates (Clinton-Biden, Trump, Macron, Le Pen, Mélenchon) mostly held on to their bases while slightly adding to them by squeezing the minor candidates (Stein-Hawkins, Johnson-Jorgensen, Fillon-Pécresse, Hamon-Hidalgo).
This gets a bit fuzzy because of parties swapping candidates in and out, and because non-presidential elections play out differently (the Parti socialiste and Les Républicains haven't been wiped out in the Sénat...yet). But it's easy to see by comparing earlier and later vote shares of candidates who ran twice: Trump went from 46% to 47%, Macron from 24% to 28%, Le Pen from 21% to 23%, and Mélenchon from 20% to 22%.
Maybe that's a boring observation, but it suggests an interesting prediction for the upcoming second round: in theory Macron ought to crush Le Pen again, no sweat. In '17 Macron won 66% to Le Pen's 34%; if both have made incremental gains since '17, then this year's percentages should be similar (maybe even further apart given Macron's bigger first-round gain).
The polls say differently, currently showing about a 53-47 split. But they were off a bit in '17, predicting about a 62-38 split instead of 66-34. Maybe the same is happening again. Tentatively I'll split the difference between polls and boring incrementalism and guess that Macron'll get 59ish% and Le Pen 41ish%. Compared to the other guesses here that's still contrarianly bullish on Macron, but in the most boring way possible — just the way I like it.
Jeff, this was funny. Your stuff is always funny. But re: "treat[ing] a single data point like a global trend", you overlooked some populists: Orban in Hungary (pop. 10M); Erdogan in Turkey (pop. 84M); Duda in Poland (pop. 38M); Bolsonaro in Brazil (pop. 213M); Duterte in Phillipines (pop. 110M)
I'm a French reader, and while it would be entirely in character to haughtily explain how American parvenus can't understand our politics, I must say that this is, actually, a pretty solid summary. Entertaining without feeling disrespectful, too.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine might have helped Le Pen by sending energy prices into the stratosphere, playing into her campaign theme about the high cost of living. Add in Zemmour making her look moderate, and you have a situation where developments that should have destroyed her campaign actually saving it.
I still think Macron will be reelected, but it will be much closer than in 2017. (I'm thinking 54-46.)
Pretty fair analysis, I think, and that pie chart is just plain awesome!
I think that the run-off election will be a little closer than Damian does (maybe 53-47, or possibly even 52-48), but so long as Le Pen loses, the end result will be good.
Another thing I noticed--the number of self-owns about the French election by right-wingers in this country. Some are trumpeting the fact that Le Pen made it to the run-off; others are trying to criticize our system by pointing out the France had its results very quickly. Clearly, they were blissfully unaware of the fact that continental France is all in the same time zone, the French make it much easier than us to vote (including automatic voter enrollment), the election takes place on a Sunday specifically so that everyone CAN vote, they don't have the anachronistic electoral college, you don't have to wait hours in line to vote, etc., etc.
I'm looking forward to Macron's attempt to counter Le Pen's cat pictures by being photographed with dozens of French poodle puppies.
I'm emboldened to pluck two data points and draw a line between them: France's presidential-vote shifts from 2017 to 2022 look like the US's from 2016 to 2020. The '20 and '22 presidential elections were/are consolidated versions of the '16 and '17 presidential elections. The major candidates (Clinton-Biden, Trump, Macron, Le Pen, Mélenchon) mostly held on to their bases while slightly adding to them by squeezing the minor candidates (Stein-Hawkins, Johnson-Jorgensen, Fillon-Pécresse, Hamon-Hidalgo).
This gets a bit fuzzy because of parties swapping candidates in and out, and because non-presidential elections play out differently (the Parti socialiste and Les Républicains haven't been wiped out in the Sénat...yet). But it's easy to see by comparing earlier and later vote shares of candidates who ran twice: Trump went from 46% to 47%, Macron from 24% to 28%, Le Pen from 21% to 23%, and Mélenchon from 20% to 22%.
Maybe that's a boring observation, but it suggests an interesting prediction for the upcoming second round: in theory Macron ought to crush Le Pen again, no sweat. In '17 Macron won 66% to Le Pen's 34%; if both have made incremental gains since '17, then this year's percentages should be similar (maybe even further apart given Macron's bigger first-round gain).
The polls say differently, currently showing about a 53-47 split. But they were off a bit in '17, predicting about a 62-38 split instead of 66-34. Maybe the same is happening again. Tentatively I'll split the difference between polls and boring incrementalism and guess that Macron'll get 59ish% and Le Pen 41ish%. Compared to the other guesses here that's still contrarianly bullish on Macron, but in the most boring way possible — just the way I like it.
Jeff, this was funny. Your stuff is always funny. But re: "treat[ing] a single data point like a global trend", you overlooked some populists: Orban in Hungary (pop. 10M); Erdogan in Turkey (pop. 84M); Duda in Poland (pop. 38M); Bolsonaro in Brazil (pop. 213M); Duterte in Phillipines (pop. 110M)
Not yet.
I would have voted for Zemmour and if we are not careful here in Canada, in a few decades we're going to need our own Zemmour.