Nupes and Together! arrived neck and neck in the first round of the legislative elections, Sunday June 12. Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his allies were pleased with their score and can hope for up to 190 deputies in the next National Assembly. But has the united left done better than in the first round of the 2022 presidential election?
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The alliance of left-wing parties won almost 5 million votes less than all of its components in the first round of the presidential election. Jean-Luc Mélenchon (21.95%), Yannick Jadot (4.63%), Fabien Roussel (2.28%) and Anne Hidalgo (1.75%) together accounted for 30.61% of the votes, i.e. approximately 10.8 million votes. In the first round of legislative elections, only 5.8 million Nupes ballots were slipped into the ballot box, ie 25.66% of the votes cast.
Given the abstention in the first round of the legislative elections (52.49%)much higher than in the first round of the presidential election (26.31%), this difference in votes is not surprising. However, Nupes may regret not having been able to sufficiently mobilize its electorate. Only 50% of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s presidential voters went to the polls on Sunday, compared to 61% of Emmanuel Macron’s voters, according to the Ipsos-Sopra Steria “Profile of Abstentionists” survey.
“The Nupes left scores lower than in the presidential election, mainly because demobilization was stronger for the Nupes electorate than for Emmanuel Macron’s electorate”explains Mathieu Gallard, director of studies at the Ipsos Institute. “Young people, the working classes voted much less in the legislative elections than in the presidential election”, he says. The gap is remarkable: 69% of 18-24 year olds abstained, against only 31% of those over 70, again according to the Ipsos-Sopra Steria “Profile of abstainers” survey.
If we compare with the legislative elections of 2017, the bet is still won for the Nupes. United, the left-wing parties, are on an equal footing with Together!. It is the first time under the Fifth Republic that the party of the President of the Republic has not recently reached the 30% threshold and does not clearly come out on top in the first round of legislative elections.
However, with the exception of 2017, the left achieved a lower score than in past legislative elections. For Mathieu Gallard, this is an expected consequence of the political recomposition around a tripartition rather than a left-right bipolarization. “Before, there were only two camps that shared the electorate. Now, with the tripartition, it is expected that the left no longer scores so high”he comments.
The national score of Nupes (25.66%) in the first round of the 2022 legislative elections is not much higher than the cumulative score of France Insoumise, Europe Ecologie-Les Verts, the French Communist Party and the Socialist Party in 2017 election. These parties had then totaled 25.38% of the vote. “There was no particular electoral dynamic, the success of the Nupes alliance is linked to its electoral strategy, which adapts to the voting method for the legislative elections.analyzes Mathieu Gallard. In 2017, left-wing candidates eliminated each other in the first round. With joint applications in 2022, it’s much easier to qualify for the second round.”
In 2017, the parties that make up the Nupes qualified for the second round in 146 constituencies and had only placed first-round candidates in 21 constituencies. This year, the Nupes is present in the second round in 380 constituencies and its candidates came first in the first round in 187 constituencies (4 deputies were elected in this first round).
But what will happen in the second round? Winning these many constituencies remains a challenge for the left alliance, which must mobilize the abstentionist electorate to hope to win. “La Nupes does not have a large pool of votes. Some of the various left voters, some far left voters or various green people will vote for them. Where Together! can count on the carryover of LR votes”, explains Mathieu Gallard<.