PoliticsFrance: 2nd round Prez elections: Polls say Sarkozy 47%, Hollande 53% toward final vote

PoliticsFrance: Prez vote 2nd round: Only way way for Sarkozy to win

Sarkozy 47%, vs Hollande 53%, says Le Monde, one of the great dailies in Paris, France.

— Politicarp
— below is reposted from The Economist's feature Élysée (May1,2k12)

Number-crunching

The only way for Sarkozy to win

Apr 30th 2012, 8:39 by S.P. | PARIS

SECOND-ROUND polls continue to make François Hollande the favourite for the presidency. Although one for Le Monde this morning suggests that the gap may be narrowing, putting Mr Hollande on 53% next to 47% for Nicolas Sarkozy, no poll has yet pointed to victory for the sitting president.

Is there any way Mr Sarkozy can pull it off? Dominique Reynié, a political scientist and director of the Foundation for Political Innovation, a liberal think-tank close to the right, has set up a handy interactive simulator on the organisation's website. By estimating the way the first-round scores will be distributed between the run-off candidates, you can simulate the final result.

The ingenious Mr Reynié has managed to come up with victory for Mr Sarkozy, by 50.16% to 49.84%, if the following assumptions are made. Mr Sarkozy would need to get 5% of the three far-left candidates’ vote; 10% of the Greens’; 40% of the centrist François Bayrou’s; and 60% of the far-right Marine Le Pen’s (plus most of the two other fringe candidates). 

All of which is extremely unlikely, in particular the notion that Mr Sarkozy will get as much as 60% of Ms Le Pen’s vote. As a previous post explained, Ms Le Pen draws in part on a strong anti-Sarkozy sentiment. Mr Reynié recognises as much, tweeting his result thus: “Difficult for Sarkozy to be re-elected, unless…”. My feeling is that the run-off vote will be closer than most of the polls suggest. But, if you play around with the numbers on this simulator, it really is very difficult to make Mr Sarkozy win.

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