French Elections: What Would It Take For Le Pen To Win?

Polls Show Le Pen & Macron Even in First Round

A month out from the first round of voting in the French presidential election, centrist candidate Macron and far-right candidate Le Pen are roughly even in the polls. However, Macron is pegged to win in the second round at 60 – 40. The challenges to Le Pen winning this election are steep: she needs to ensure that her grassroots supporters, who are mainly less educated, blue-collar, rural voters, actually go out and vote and she also needs to close the gap between her and Macron in the polls.

While it is still possible for Le Pen to achieve this, on a mathematical basis, it is going to be hard work. Le Pen will need to convince voters who have said that they will abstain or vote blank in the second round, to change their minds and vote for her. Abstention and blank votes are an inbuilt safety measure in the French voting system to protect against extremists, and as such, it is difficult to see Le Pen succeeding in gaining the support of this demographic. However, recent terror attacks in Paris and London could provide a boost in support.
Markets Wary of Polling Accuracy

Le Pen had consistently led the polls this year for the first round of voting, but over recent weeks her lead has narrowed, and Macron has caught up. Indeed, some polls even have Macron as being slightly ahead, and all polls suggest Macron will win clearly in the second round. However, the accuracy of polls has been brought into question strongly over the last year with Brexit, and the US elections both confounding poll maker’s forecasts and many investors are wary of this hence the elevated uncertainty.

It is important to note the differences between the two electoral systems, however. In America, a candidate needs to win the most electoral college votes to gain the presidency whereas in France a candidate needs to win 50% of the vote to be elected. To put this in context, Trump would not have been elected president in the French electoral system as he lost the popular vote to Clinton.

Read more: https://www.orbex.com/blog/2017/03/french-elections-what-would-it-take-for-le-pen-to-win/

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