Can the left win the legislative elections and Jean-Luc Mélenchon become prime minister? The eleventh wave of the electoral panel provides some answers to these two questions – with the caution required by a survey carried out one month before the first round. It highlights the momentum involved, but also the challenges to be met and the limit to be exceeded.
With 27% of the voting intentions, the New People’s Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) adds up, more or less, the score of the left-wing candidates who presented themselves in April and is only one point ahead of the coalition of the presidential majority. Better, when we analyze the sociology of its voters, we see that it is not only dominant among the youngest (43% among 18-24 year olds), but that it is in the lead in all the brackets age, up to 59, particularly among working people.
Above all, a triple dynamic is emerging. First, an electoral dynamic that translates the projection into seats. While the left only has around sixty deputies in the outgoing Assembly, it would have between 165 and 195, according to projections made by Ipsos: we see that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts – in this case parties. Then, a psychological dynamic, with the hope of victory. If only 23% of French people think that Nupes will win the legislative elections, this is the case for 56% of its voters. Finally, a political dynamic, with 79% approval of the agreement among left-wing sympathizers and a desire for victory that extends beyond the shores of the left: 45% of French people declare, in fact, that they prefer a legislative majority led by the Nupes rather than the presidential majority – with National Rally voters split evenly on this issue.
To reassure
To go beyond a great defeat, however, two challenges must be met simultaneously. Mobilizing is the first challenge. According to Ipsos, the participation rate is currently around 47% – abstention thus progressing even more than in 2017 between the presidential election and the legislative elections. But what is striking is that it is the categories that had voted the most for Jean-Luc Mélenchon whose relative abstention is the highest: 68% among 18-24 year olds, 63% among employees, 53 % among supporters of left-wing parties. There is, as in April, a reserve of potential progress for the Nupes.
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