At the end of the first round of the presidential election, the low advance of Marine Le Pen on the third candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, surprised. Have the survey institutes deceived? The Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Ipsos recalls, in an interview to the “World”, the large proportion of undecided measured on Friday, April 8, especially among the voters on the left.
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TINTURIER BRICE is the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Ipsos, partner of the world for the electoral survey conducted with the Sciences Po Political Research Center (CEVIPOF) and the Jean Jaurès Foundation. In the aftermath of the April 10th, the first round of the presidential election, he analyzes the voting dynamics for Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
The polls give, for several weeks, the order of arrival of the first six candidates. However, the dynamics of Jean-Luc Mélenchon seems to have been underestimated and Valérie Pécresse collected half of the votes planned. Have the polls deceived?
No, say that is totally excessive while the polls gave the two qualified in the right order, the good gap between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, their good level and the good order of the Six first candidates. And sincerely, it had nothing obvious. They also measured the dynamics at work, including that of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, just like the decline of Valérie Pécresse and Eric Zemmour. So yes, a thousand times yes, the magnitude of this useful vote, particularly in favor of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, has not been captured on Friday at his Sunday landing level. But the reason is quite simple: 42% of the voters of Yannick Jadot and 38% of those of Fabien Roussel indicated, in our last wave of investigation, that they could change your mind! And they hesitated in particular … with Jean-Luc Mélenchon. And 32% of Valerie Pécresse voters were in the same case and hesitated with Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. I add that in our Sunday investigation, 30% of Mélenchon’s voters say they have decided … at the very last moment or the same day. This is the highest figure.
All this, we pointed out, including a reconciliation scenario between Mr. Mélenchon and M Le Pen if the first managed to pick up a little jadot, a bit of Roussel and A few abstainers. That’s what he managed to do. Basically, it is not that the story was written in advance and that we did not know how to read it, but that it has partly written in the two, last three days.
Is the Mélenchon electorate more difficult to assess than others? Is there a “hidden vote” Mélenchon?
I do not believe at all that it is a hidden vote, no more than there was, we have seen, hidden vote for Eric Zemmour. You have to stop with that. The electorate of Jean-Luc Mélenchon is his 2017 electorate that he has gradually remotted and to whom he agreed almost all of the socialist and environmental electorate, including that of the big cities.
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