Will Macron prove to be quasi ineffective against Le Pen today?

Will Macron prove to be quasi ineffective against Le Pen today?

My expectation for today has been the lower the turnout the more damaging it would be for Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Luc Mélenchon whilst being great for Marine Le Pen. So the 12pm CST release from the Ministère de l’Intérieur was useful to know, with turnout 3% lower at the equivalent stage in 2017. The tweets from Mathieu Gallard do add an important caveat, the 12pm figure isn’t usually indicative of the final turnout figure. However based on the 12pm figure,…

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Known unknowns

Known unknowns

How will the pandemic impact the next general election? When it comes to predicting and betting on the next general election Covid-19 is what makes me unconfident about the election. Hopefully the pandemic will be over with no scary vaccine evading variants by the time of the next election, but the legacy of the pandemic is likely to be with us for years to come. The most obvious legacy will be the backlog in the NHS caused by the pandemic,…

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If the polls are right Macron is heading for victory

If the polls are right Macron is heading for victory

But could a low turnout change that? After what can only be described as a lackluster Presidential campaign France goes to the polls tomorrow with predictions of a very low turnout. In that situation, we could just be in for a shock. Tomorrow decides which two of the 12 contenders go through to the final runoff two weeks on Sunday. One poll last week found 54% of people said they felt it hadn’t really started. A factor here is that…

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The collapse of Sunak as seen through the eyes of punters

The collapse of Sunak as seen through the eyes of punters

It comes as something as a shock to look back to January when Chancellor Sunak’s “Number 10” chances were riding high and he was approaching evens in the Next PM betting. Since then it has been almost all downhill and he is currently rated as an 11% chance by the betting markets. Even that appears to be far too high. Now the speculation is growing about whether he can hang on to the Chancellor’s job. His Spring Statement only a…

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The Granite State is looking fairly solid for Democrats this year

The Granite State is looking fairly solid for Democrats this year

It’s not a good time for Democrats right now, but it’s going to get a lot worse. Nothing in Biden’s approval rating or other key indicators have changed my view from last November that the midterms coming up this year will see Republican gains – probably enough to give them control of both the House and the Senate. Yet that doesn’t mean nothing is going their way. In the purple state of New Hampshire, their incumbent Senator is looking pretty…

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Starmer’s the one with most at stake in the May 5th elections

Starmer’s the one with most at stake in the May 5th elections

Just 4 weeks from today we will be analyzing and processing the whole range of election results that are being voted on the day before. There are four broad areas – elections in the three national regions (Scotland/Wales/NI) and the English local elections which are, on the face of it, in good territory for LAB. A major segment is set to be the London boroughs and elsewhere in England there are interesting contests in a range of council areas which…

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My Sunak 2022 exit bet is looking better

My Sunak 2022 exit bet is looking better

As far as what used to be called the broad sheets are concerned there is no doubt what the main story of the day – the tax status of the wife of Chancellor Sunak. However you try to spin this it just looks bad that the spouse of the man in charge of running the economy and the government’s finances should be able to pay far less UK tax because of her non-dom status. It is not helped by the…

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No more polls after tomorrow in the French election

No more polls after tomorrow in the French election

One of the ways that French election law operates differently from other countries is that opinion polls are banned for the final two days of the campaign. So the polls that will be published tomorrow will be the final ones and be those which will determine how well each pollster has done. You can see the logic behind the French approach but I doubt whether such a measure would get support in the UK. Arguably the way elections are operated…

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