National Rally candidate Jordan Bardella is banking on medium-sized cities

Two months before the European elections, Jordan Bardella will hold a meeting on Saturday evening in Lécluse, in the North. A municipality chosen to serve the strategy of the National Rally: favoring medium-sized towns.

As a new campaign weekend begins on Saturday April 6 for the candidates for the European elections which will take place on June 8 and 9, on the side of the National Rally, the head of the list Jordan Bardella has chosen the Nord department. More precisely, he is expected on Saturday morning at the Cambrai market, before a meeting in the evening in the small town of Lécluse, not far from Hénin-Beaumont. The RN candidate is actually crisscrossing the country, favoring medium-sized towns, a strategy well thought out by his campaign team.

In their opinion, there is no point in targeting large metropolises in which the RN is traditionally very low. “We are in the lead more in peri-urban and rural areas”underlines a party executive, then “there, we want to infuse in intermediate towns”, he explains. Jordan Bardella therefore performs in Montbéliard, Lécluse or even Royan, in front of 1,000 to 2,000 people maximum. In total, around ten mini-meetings in different regions. And each time the candidate Bardella takes advantage of the trip to show himself on a market or an event and decline another strategy, his “selfie strategy” : one photo, one vote.

Preserve finances

The RN actually keeps the big cities for its three major meetings which punctuate its campaign. The launch was in March in Marseille, in front of 6,000 supporters. The next meeting is May 1 in Perpignan, and finally, Paris at the beginning of June, just before the election, key moments for which the party will pull out all the stops on the scenography side and therefore also on the wallet side.
Because the RN also takes into account the financial argument. A public meeting in medium-sized towns but favorable to the RN often makes it possible to obtain municipal rooms at a lower cost, and it is useful when we know that the RN does not want to spend more than 4 million euros in this campaign , i.e. the maximum amount reimbursed to all lists which exceed 3%.

But this campaign strategy also illustrates the fact that the RN does not want to rely on the good polls of the moment. Have 30% voting intentions, “it’s sure it’s rather flattering, it gives confidence”, party officials admit. But be careful, this is not “just an indication”alerts a campaign regular. “It’s not because you set a time six months before that you win the competition,” he warns. Another strategist warns of three risks: “disappointment, demobilization and dispersion”. We must make voters want to travel on June 9, he explains, and not “to have fun” by voting for another list like that of hunters.