Forecasting the FN presidential and legislative performance in 2012

Jocelyn A.J. Evans (1) , Gilles Ivaldi (2)

1 University of Leeds
2 URMIS - Unite de recherche migrations et sociétés

Forecasting the Extreme Right vote in French elections is one of the few ‘third-party’ forecasts that has attracted attention in a forecasting literature focusing generally on incumbent performance and winners. Despite being a ‘hard case’ because of third-party status, unstable polling estimates and relatively few data points, previous models have provided relatively strong forecasts of the performance of the Front National (FN) and its erstwhile leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen. The recent succession of Le Pen by his daughter, Marine, and her apparent popularity pose a significant challenge to these models, however. We discuss and evaluate our previous model's prediction of her likely score in the first round of the presidentials, comparing this to standard forecasting benchmarks, and look at possible adjustments to account for the speculated ‘Marine effect’. We then compare this with other vote indicators including the results of an experimental expert judgment survey.

Mots clés: Front national; Presidential Election 2012; Forecasting; Extreme right vote; Marine Le Pen

Domaines: Science politique

Jocelyn A.J. Evans, Gilles Ivaldi. Forecasting the FN presidential and legislative performance in 2012. APSA Annual Meeting, American Political Science Association, Aug 2012, New Orleans, United States. ⟨halshs-01387643⟩