French politics: houlala!

[Altherion]

41 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I have to add though, that according to a recent survey, 47% of people who voted Mélenchon in the first round will choose Macron and 19% Le Pen. For Fillon it's 49% and 25% respectively.

That's interesting because it's remarkably consistent with the overall polling. Consider:

1) The polling for the second round is currently almost exactly 60-40 in favor of Macron (perhaps a tiny bit less than that if you include the latest polls).

2) In the first round, we have: 24.0% Macron, 21.3% Le Pen, 20.0% Fillon and 19.6% Mélenchon.

So if we take your numbers, we get:

Macron(R2) = 24% (i.e. Macron(R1)) + 9.8% (i.e. 0.49*Fillon(R1)) + 9.2% (i.e. 0.47*Mélenchon(R1) = 43%

Le Pen(R2) = 21.3% (i.e. Le Pen(R1) + 5.0% (i.e. 0.25*Fillon(R1)) + 3.7% (i.e. 0.19*Mélenchon(R1) = 30%

That is, if only these people and no others voted, the result would be 59-41 in favor of Macron which is almost exactly what he has in the second round poll. It's pretty weird since there is a sizable contingent (15% of the first round voters) who were left out of the calculation. It looks like the unseen 15% is also pretty close to 60-40 in favor of Macron as are any voters who skipped the first round but plan to vote in the second.

[Rippounet]

43 minutes ago, Altherion said:

It looks like the unseen 15% is also pretty close to 60-40 in favor of Macron

Well that makes sense.

If you look at the results of the first round for minor candidates:
Hamon: 6,36%
Poutou: 1.09%
Arthaud: 0,64%
Total for the left: 8,09%

Dupont-Aignan: 4,7%
Lassalle: 1,21%
Asselineau: 0,92%
Total for the right: 6,83%

Using the numbers we have for Mélenchon and Fillon that's +7% for Macron (+3,76 & +3,35) and +3,25% for Le Pen  (+1,54 & +1,7).

You'd get 50% for Macron and 33% for Le Pen in the end. Adjusted to 100% that is indeed 60,2% for Macron and 39,8% for Le Pen.

[denstorebog]

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

Well that makes sense.

If you look at the results of the first round for minor candidates:
Hamon: 6,36%
Poutou: 1.09%
Arthaud: 0,64%
Total for the left: 8,09%

Dupont-Aignan: 4,7%
Lassalle: 1,21%
Asselineau: 0,92%
Total for the right: 6,83%

Using the numbers we have for Mélenchon and Fillon that's +7% for Macron (+3,76 & +3,35) and +3,25% for Le Pen  (+1,54 & +1,7).

You'd get 50% for Macron and 33% for Le Pen in the end. Adjusted to 100% that is indeed 60,2% for Macron and 39,8% for Le Pen.

French election solved! Time to move on to the German one.

[The guy from the Vale]

4 minutes ago, denstorebog said:

French election solved! Time to move on to the German one.

Move on, nothing to see here. We're far too likely to get a snoozefest, as we always do.

[Loge]

There's the French parliamentary elections in June. Don't get much attention now but they're at least as important as the presidential elections and even harder to predict. As for the German elections, there's some regional elections this month, then the national elections in September. Looks like the Schultz hype is ebbing, so it's another term for Merkel, presumably in a coalition with the Social Democrats (again). The Liberals will probably make it back into the Bundestag, but they'll not be strong enough to form a coalition.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Those numbers are reassuring considering times almost up for any outside event to occur.

[Altherion]

On 5/2/2017 at 5:55 PM, Rippounet said:

Using the numbers we have for Mélenchon and Fillon that's +7% for Macron (+3,76 & +3,35) and +3,25% for Le Pen  (+1,54 & +1,7).

You'd get 50% for Macron and 33% for Le Pen in the end. Adjusted to 100% that is indeed 60,2% for Macron and 39,8% for Le Pen.

Neat. So it all adds up and the French pollsters appear to have all of this figured out  (American ones should learn from them). Of course, it's also possible that we're all in for a surprise...

[Alarich II]

Great debate yesterday - or should I say mudslinging contest? After MLPs opening statement, I knew it would become amunsing.

In the end, Macron was in biased opinion much stronger on facts, had a cohesive economic strategy and what I especially liked, is that he didn't really back down on his plans for economic reforms, even in the face of a candidate who called herself the "candidate of the people".

MLP showed, once again, that she's good - very good even - at riling people up, but really weak on facts and quite delusional on the topic of foreign and economic policies.

[Rippounet]

9 hours ago, Altherion said:

Neat. So it all adds up and the French pollsters appear to have all of this figured out  (American ones should learn from them). Of course, it's also possible that we're all in for a surprise...

Last poll I saw was made with a sample of more than 13,000 people with a margin of error of around 1%.

7 hours ago, Triskan said:

So this is largely an anecdote, but there was a broadcast townhall on MSNBC some few months ago where Bernie went to West Virginia in a rural district, and it seemed the attendents really fit the rural profile.  At any rate, Sanders killed it and seemed to really click with them.  Again, just one event and a televised one at that, but it really felt like there was something there.

There are similar anecdotes with Mélenchon. Just today in Le Monde:
http://www.lemonde.fr/election-presidentielle-2017/article/2017/05/04/a-mantes-la-ville-melenchon-grignote-le-fn_5122199_4854003.html

I think the same type of geographical areas are at stake, but what Mormont is suggesting is that few people actually swing from far-right to far-left. What possibly happens is that from one election to the next it isn't the same voters who abstain, thus artificially inflating the numbers for one or the other.
I think it's an important subtlety. But one that may also find its limits.

3 hours ago, Alarich II said:

Great debate yesterday - or should I say mudslinging contest? After MLPs opening statement, I knew it would become amusing.

Well, Macron didn't screw up.

[Mindwalker]

Wow, the debate was ugly. Worse than Trump/ Clinton. LePen worse than Trump. Or maybe my perception was coloured by watching it with simultaious tranlation, which is always stressful (too many voices)... Those two journalists were a bit overtaxed with trying to reign them in...

[Altherion]

Somebody has apparently hacked the Macron campaign and posted the results on Pastebin. I don't understand why they did this now and not before the first round or at least a few days ago. France has laws against campaigning too close to election day so I'm not sure how many people will even hear about this unless there is something explosive in there, this is a waste of effort. Has anyone heard of anything interesting in the hacked material?

[Gertrude]

I'd imagine social media will make it very visible. I think the Macron campaign was also able to get a statement out under the wire saying that false info was seeded into the leaks.

[Rippounet]

Mainstream media have been forbidden to do anything with those leaks.
(Edit to be clear, because the election campaign and anything that might influence it has to stop at least 24h before the vote itself)

I'm not seeing anything pop up on alternative media either though.

[Rippounet]

Ok, this article explains what these leaks were all about:
http://www.numerama.com/politique/254983-compte-offshore-demmanuel-macron-une-intox-venue-de-4chan.html

So the other day during the debate, Le Pen suggested that Macron had an offshore bank account in the Bahamas (a rumour that had been circulating on the internet for some time). In the leaks was a fake document supposedly demonstrating just that. Some journalists were contacted but refused to print anything before the documents could be identified.
In a nutshell, it was a very calculated attempt at a last-minute smear campaign.

[all swedes are racist]

https://theintercept.com/2017/05/06/no-macron-leaks-politically-motivated-hacking-not-whistleblowing/

and an english language article on the hack

[Rippounet]

Answering this here:

4 hours ago, Kalbear said:

But releasing them 3 days before means that Macron is still going to win - but he will be marred as flawed, and France will be more divided and he'll be on the defensive from the get-go.

Not really. First, much of "MacronGate" has been debunked before it even really started. Then, the "incriminating" documents can easily be found on the internet and are either obviously fake or completely innocuous. 
This is only going to convince people who already believe Macron is corrupt.

[mormont]

Fillon endorsed Macron. Melenchon did not.

[Rippounet]

65-35 in the end.

We'll be all right for another five years at least.

[Mindwalker]

Congrats - not necessarily for getting Macron, but for not getting Le Pen (yet)!

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

5 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

65-35 in the end.

We'll be all right for another five years at least.

phew. scary times though.