2017 French Presidential Election
Re: 2017 French Presidential Election
Well at least math still works.
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.
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Re: 2017 French Presidential Election
Frelga! Thanks for the smile. It is always comforting to know math still works.
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Re: 2017 French Presidential Election
Except the polls underestimated Macron's support by more than 10 points. It was a worse miss than Brexit or Trump, they just happened to get the winner right.
Re: 2017 French Presidential Election
That is wrong. Most early May polls predicted that Macron would earn slightly above 60 per cent of the vote. So yes, most polls underestimated Macron's lead but only by 3 to 5 per cent. https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_d ... se_de_2017Dave_LF wrote:Except the polls underestimated Macron's support by more than 10 points. It was a worse miss than Brexit or Trump, they just happened to get the winner right.
Re: 2017 French Presidential Election
Even if that's true, it is interesting that the pollsters underestimated the "populist" movement each time.
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Re: 2017 French Presidential Election
538 has an article on this exact topic - they share Dave_LF's assessment that the gap between the actual result and the final aggregated polls was about ten points:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ma ... e-way-off/
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ma ... e-way-off/
In this case, they actually overestimated it, as has been common for right-wing populist parties in Europe (the 538 article gives some other examples). It's interesting, therefore, that they underestimated the support for both Brexit and Trump.yovargas wrote:Even if that's true, it is interesting that the pollsters underestimated the "populist" movement each time.
Re: 2017 French Presidential Election
Ah, my mistake, I misunderstood.
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- Dave_LF
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Re: 2017 French Presidential Election
It's more that I share their opinion, if we're going to be honest :Túrin Turambar wrote:538 has an article on this exact topic - they share Dave_LF's assessment that the gap between the actual result and the final aggregated polls was about ten points
They go on to point out that if you only consider polls from May, the miss becomes a slightly better 8.1 points.The average poll conducted in the final two weeks of the campaign gave Macron a far smaller lead (22 percentage points) than he ended up winning by (32 points), for a 10-point miss.
...
The previous largest error, 8.4 percentage points, occurred in 2002, when just a single public poll was conducted in the final two weeks of the campaign. This year, 18 surveys were conducted during the same period. Not one of them had Macron winning by as large a margin as he won by.
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Re: 2017 French Presidential Election
They both under and over estimated the populist movement in Europe.
Although LePen did not win, it did come down to two candidates who were both outside the mainstream political flow in France. There is a pretty strong anti-establishment trend going on around the western world right now, at the same time that the leadership of the western world seems to be failing at the job. They over-estimated in that LePen did not win, the under-estimated in that an outsider did win and LePen made it into the top two.
Personally, although I do not care for her at all, I was hoping to see LePen win for the entertainment value.
Although LePen did not win, it did come down to two candidates who were both outside the mainstream political flow in France. There is a pretty strong anti-establishment trend going on around the western world right now, at the same time that the leadership of the western world seems to be failing at the job. They over-estimated in that LePen did not win, the under-estimated in that an outsider did win and LePen made it into the top two.
Personally, although I do not care for her at all, I was hoping to see LePen win for the entertainment value.
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- Túrin Turambar
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Re: 2017 French Presidential Election
When the result was announced, I speculated how Macron would govern as an independent with a legislature dominated by the mainstream parties. But in a development that is, I think, more surprising than Macron's original victory, his party and its allies have won a sizeable absolute majority in the Assembly.
REM and allies: 350
Republicans and allies (parliamentary right): 137
Socialists and allies (parliamentary left): 44
National Front (Le Pen): 8
Unsubmissive France (Mélenchon): 17
Others: 21
Given that Macron's Party didn't exist two years ago and France has had a relatively-stable two-party system since the foundation of the Fifth Republic in the 1960s (interrupted by the National Front) it seems hard to me to overstate just how massive this is. It'd be like the leader of a third party which hasn't even been founded yet winning the 2020 U.S. Presidential election along with over 300 seats in the House of Representatives.
It's also interesting that, in spite of the narrative of voters going for more and more extreme options, the French electorate has moved decisively to the centre. The National Front and Unsubmissive France, for the hopes of their leaders, fared fairly poorly.
REM and allies: 350
Republicans and allies (parliamentary right): 137
Socialists and allies (parliamentary left): 44
National Front (Le Pen): 8
Unsubmissive France (Mélenchon): 17
Others: 21
Given that Macron's Party didn't exist two years ago and France has had a relatively-stable two-party system since the foundation of the Fifth Republic in the 1960s (interrupted by the National Front) it seems hard to me to overstate just how massive this is. It'd be like the leader of a third party which hasn't even been founded yet winning the 2020 U.S. Presidential election along with over 300 seats in the House of Representatives.
It's also interesting that, in spite of the narrative of voters going for more and more extreme options, the French electorate has moved decisively to the centre. The National Front and Unsubmissive France, for the hopes of their leaders, fared fairly poorly.