I have been interested in following the opinion polls in the elections that will be held in several European countries this year since the last US presidential elections and Brexit. The mechanism of opinion polls failed to predict the winner of the American elections, and also to predict the Brexit. Opinion polls are a question mark now in France as many did not pay attention that, at the end of 2016 and the beginning of this year, the results of opinion polls concerning expectations about the preliminary elections resulted in a surprising defeat of the candidates in the camps of Alain Juppé, right-wing former prime minister, and Manuel Valls, former Socialist Prime Minister.
Recent polls show that the chances of the leader of the far-left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, are the most likely in the French presidential elections to be held at the end of this month. A poll by the ELAP institute confirmed that Jean-Luc Mélenchon seemed the most convincing for 25% of the audience of the last debate compared to En Marche! leader Emmanuel Macron (21%) and right-wing Republican Party candidate François Fillon (15%).
Despite the big difference between the three leading candidates and their rivals, I have to point out the risk of ignoring the chances of some of the competitors in the opinion polls, especially the leader of the far-right Marine Le Pen (11%), whose chances cannot be excluded entirely based on what the polls show.
The results of the polls in the French elections may not be of real significance to actual elections for several reasons. The results of opinion polls have fluctuated strongly in recent weeks. The statistical differences that separate the top candidates from each other are not large and can change in the real vote, especially that the percentage in the previous result was just to convince the voters about this debate. There are other points of strength for Emmanuel Macron , who received 23% votes in the polls as the favourite electoral program, followed by Mélenchon with 22%, whereas Marine Le Pen got 15%. Macron has the best results in terms of having the qualities expected in the president of the Republic, with 27% of support, followed by Mélenchon with 21%, which is a relatively large difference in this important point.
In general, there are several factors that motivate me to be cautious in dealing with the results of opinion polls, most importantly the use of social media as an influencing factor in shaping the public opinion, which has caused significant changes. The issue is no longer the same as it used to be, where the traditional media needed a certain period of time, depending on the circumstances of each society, to cause positive or negative change. But now the change can take place within a few minutes after a Tweet by an influential, or a terrorist attack or official statement live broadcast during the voting hours.
We must admit that the social media have a huge impact on public attitudes, as they limit effectiveness of opinion polls made weeks and months before the elections. This does not mean the lack of usefulness of polls, but that we must not totally rely on their results.
Changing modes of communication in modern societies resulted in more and more undecided voters and constantly swinging views. The voter can shift from favouring one candidate over the other in the aftermath of a real-life accident. One-third of the opinion polls in the French presidential elections (ranging from 31% to 38%) concerned undecided voters. This percentage can confuse any calculations trying to anticipate the potential voting trends.
What matters to the majority of the world is not necessarily the credibility or method of polls. Everyone is waiting for the upcoming developments in Western policy making. Will Europe increase support to the right-wing populist movement, or is this support going to end with the French elections?
So far, statistical indicators say that Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right anti-immigration Euroskeptic National Front, who holds similar views to the current US President, has lagged in the initial polls, specifically at the end of January with 25% support. The statistical indicators confirmed that Macron lagged too.
Some political experts say that if Le Pen passes the first round and makes it to the second round of elections on May 7 (according to the French electoral system, if no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote in the first round, candidates with highest votes move to the second round), she might or might not win, because the majority of the French do not agree with her approaches, especially Euroskepticism. However, Trump and Brexit taught us that nothing is impossible in elections.
Many days separate us from the presidential vote on April 23. The voting expectations can be proven, and in turn can be dramatically changed after some events like terrorist attacks. We have to deal with the results of opinion polls with much caution and little reliability.
