LEGISLATIVE POLLS. The polls weren’t wrong. La Nupes and LREM end the first round of the legislative elections neck and neck this Sunday, June 12, leaving the RN in 3rd place. The 2nd round polls will soon take over. But projections in number of seats have already been established by pollsters…
[Mise à jour le 13 juin 2022 à 1h19] Did the polls on the 2022 legislative elections get it right? We must believe that yes to the reading of the results of the legislative elections this Sunday, June 12. As the voting intentions had predicted, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Nupes is shaking up Together! and La République en Marche and the two blocks finished tied or almost, leaving the National Rally 5 or 7 points behind.
No 2nd round poll has yet been published at the time of writing this Sunday evening, but the pollsters have established, based on the data from the 1st round, projections in number of seats for the main formations which will make up the National Assembly during the next legislature. Despite the breakthrough of the Nupes during this first round, it is indeed the presidential majority which should obtain the greatest number of elected officials next week, benefiting in most of the constituencies from a favorable report of votes. But the looming majority for Emmanuel Macron will certainly be less powerful than during his first five-year term and the left-wing bloc could approach 200 deputies in the Assembly.
According to the Ifop estimate for LCI released this Sunday, June 12 at the end of the first round, Emmanuel Macron should reach a parliamentary majority. But it remains to be seen where the cursor will be placed. At 289 deputies, it is an absolute majority that LREM and Together would manage to obtain. Below, this majority will remain relative.
Projections made by Ifop-Fiducial estimate that Together (LREM, MoDem, Horizons, Agir) would win between 275 and 310 seats, a narrow parliamentary majority. The other seats would be won mainly by the Nupes, between 175 and 205. Insufficient, even in the best of cases, to impose cohabitation. LR would remain the third force in the Assembly after a sharp decline, with between 45 and 65 deputies against 100 today, when the RN could have 15 to 30 elected officials. Sufficient to obtain a parliamentary group.
One of the latest projections was established by Ipsos-Sopra-Steria for France Télévisions. She gives this time to Together! between 255 and 295 seats (189 to 219 for LREM, 45 to 50 for Modem, 21 to 26 for Horizons, the party of Edouard Philippe), against 150 to 190 for Nupes (150 to 190 seats for LFI, 24 to 29 for the PS, 20 to 30 for EELV, 10 to 16 for the PCF). LR and the UDI, with the various right, would obtain between 50 and 80 elected and the National Rally from 20 to 45 seats. The elected various left (excluding Nupes) would be between 15 and 25, enough to form a group. (hover over the graph to see the detail).
Please note: the projections established on the evening of the first round of the legislative elections are not the result of polls. The institutes that develop them for television channels are based on the actual results of several hundred polling stations representative of the diversity of the constituencies, spread throughout France. With these starting data, mathematical models will come to give a range of the probable number of seats for each political bloc. Algorithms whose challenge is above all to anticipate the reports of votes in the 577 constituencies.
What did the last poll of voting intentions say about the 1st round of the 2022 legislative elections?
The latest survey from the Ifop institute for LCI, published Friday, June 10, gave the Nupes (26.5%) just ahead of Ensemble! (26%), when the RN collected 19% of the voting intentions, far ahead of LR (10%) and Reconquest (5.5%). A result similar to the very latest Harris Interactive and Toluna barometer for Challenges (June 8 to 10) and to the Ipsos-Sopra-Steria surveys for France Télévisions, Radio France and Le Monde, giving the two formations equal or almost, in front of the maximum RN 20%. The match between Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Luc Mélenchon was therefore announced and the pollsters made no mistake.
The various polls published in recent weeks gave Together! and the Nupes at the top of the voting intentions, ahead of the National Rally, this trend in the polls having been maintained throughout almost the entire campaign. The movement led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the alliance formed around Emmanuel Macron have been credited with 25 to 28% of the votes in a pocket handkerchief in recent weeks, which is what the first round delivered as a balance.
Difficult to produce reliable polls for the legislative elections
Please note: the votes for the legislative elections are very different from those cast for the presidential election. Other components structure this vote: the weight of the parties established in the territories, the political personalities appreciated locally, the political rapprochements at the level of the constituencies, and the method of voting, majority in two rounds. All this makes the job of pollsters difficult. But if it is impossible to make precise projections, certain elements must be taken into account to measure the balance of power.
In the 577 constituencies in mainland France and overseas (excluding the constituencies of French nationals living abroad), Emmanuel Macron came out on top, in the first round of the presidential election, in 256. Marine Le Pen in 206, Jean -Luc Mélenchon in 104, Valérie Pécresse in… none. But remember that in 2017, Marine Le Pen managed to lead the first round of the presidential election in 216 constituencies; the far-right party had only managed to elect 9 deputies.