“I ask the French to elect me Prime Minister”. A month after this declaration, Jean-Luc Mélenchon can still nurture the ambition to settle in Matignon in a few weeks, while the New Popular Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) appears at the top of the voting intentions in several polls. in view of the legislative elections of June 12 and 19 (in particular those of the Harris Interactive and Ifop institutes). However, in these same opinion polls, the projections of seats in the National Assembly give more elected officials to the Ensemble confederation, which should allow Emmanuel Macron to maintain a presidential majority. How to explain this discrepancy between voting intentions at national level and projections of seats in the future hemicycle? ? Lighting.
Because there is no proportionality in a two-round majority vote
The gap observed between voting intentions and the number of seats by party (or electoral union) is explained by the very functioning of legislative elections, which take place by majority vote in two rounds. Each of the 577 French constituencies elects its own deputy in order to obtain an equal representation of each territory to the National Assembly. VShe voting method, however, creates a distortion between the votes cast at national level and the actual composition of the hemicycle at the Palais-Bourbon since it There is no proportionality between the score of a party or a political bloc and its number of seats in the Assembly. Unlike the European elections, where the parties are allocated a number of seats equivalent to their national score, under a proportional voting system.
This gap between the number of votes and the number of potential seats is therefore not due to an error by the polling institutes in their projections, but stems from the method of voting in the legislative elections. Illustration with the Harris Interactive poll (in PDF) carried out between May 6 and May 9, which gives 28% of voting intentions for Nupes and 26% for Together in the 1st round of the legislative elections, but a number of seats largely in favor of the macronist block (300 to 350) compared to that of the left (105 to 168), according to the projection of the institute.
Thus, even if Nupes comes first in the votes cast throughout the country, it will not necessarily obtain a majority in the Assembly. And there is another bias which should encourage us to read these polls with caution: for lack of time and sufficient financial means, the pollsters cannot carry out an opinion poll in each constituency. They therefore rely on forecasting models to extrapolate national trends at a local level. Consequently, if the projections by seats can give an idea of the order of magnitude of the different parliamentary groups, they cannot be perceived as a completely reliable estimate.
Because the left is “disadvantaged” by the concentration of its electorate
Other factors explain the stark difference between the national score that the left alliance could achieve and the number of seats it could win. “For the left, there is this question of the ability to win second rounds, but above all there is the phenomenon of concentration of its electorate in certain constituencies. The left has a very concentrated electorate in the big cities”explains to franceinfo Bruno Jeanbart, vice-president from the OpinionWay polling institute.
Because the electorate of the left is not distributed in a homogeneous way on the territory. Unlike The Marching Republic, which achieves relatively similar scores in a large number of constituenciesleft-wing voters are heavily concentrated in cities and outlying suburbs, confirms Mathieu Gallard, research director at Ipsos. “The geographical distribution of Emmanuel Macron’s electorate in the presidential election was quite homogeneous. There are few constituencies where he scored very high, unlike Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who sometimes obtained scores of 40- 45%. There are also few constituencies where the Head of State scored very poorly, unlike Marine Le Pen, who in places recorded scores below 10-15%.
However, to win seats in the legislative elections, it is more effective to obtain balanced results in most constituencies (in view of the second round) than to have very high scores in certain constituencies and very low in others.
The Constitutional Council is responsible for ensuring that each deputy represents the same number of citizens, so that each elected vote has the same weight in the Assembly. But disparities persist. The deputy who will be elected by the 134,805 registered in the 3rd constituency of Vendée will for example have the same weight in the hemicycle as the one who will be elected by the 5,045 registered in the single constituency of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon. “Legislative elections tend to overrepresent the rural world. Even if the Constitutional Council ensures that there are not too large differences, the fact of being concentrated in the big cities is a small disadvantage“analyzes Bruno Jeanbart.
Because the centrist positioning of the presidential majority is an asset
Positioned at the center of the political spectrum, Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble confederation is in a strong position to win seats in the second round, where the challenge for qualified candidates is to mobilize the vote in their favor but also against their opponents. . Faced with a right-wing candidate, the centrist candidate will recover at least part of the votes of left-wing voters. And conversely against a candidate from the left. “In the second round, the central position of La République en Marche is a huge advantage“, judge Bruno jeanbart.
“The downside is having a slightly weaker, less mobilized base. But in this case, there is a dynamic thanks to the victory of Emmanuel Macron in the presidential“believes the vice-president of OpinionWay. This dynamic, also called “majority fact”, has been observed in all the legislative elections which have followed a presidential election since the establishment of the five-year term in 2002.
In a majority ballot system, this central position of the Macronist bloc, combined with the low scores of the left in the rural constituencies, therefore ensures a significant reserve of seats (and potentially a comfortable majority) for the Head of State. Especially since Emmanuel Macron can also count on the blocking vote against the far right of certain left-wing voters. “In one out of two constituencies where La République en Marche reaches the second round, it finds itself facing the RN. These are easy second rounds to win.” believes Bruno Jeanbart.