The Polls of the 2007 French Presidential Campaign: Were Lessons Learned from the 2002 Catastrophe?
Address correspondence to Professor Claire Durand, Department of Sociology, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, succ. Centre-ville, Montréal, Québec, H3C 3J7, Canada, E-mail: Claire.Durand{at}umontreal.ca
After the ‘catastrophe’ of the 2002 French presidential election, when polls did not hint at the possibility that Jean-Marie LePen would qualify for the second round, one might ask whether pollsters learnt lessons from this experience. Using the polls published for the two rounds of the 2007 presidential election as well as complementary information available from the French Survey Commission, this article examines whether (i) the polls were more accurate in 2007 than in 2002 and (ii) whether there are indications that pollsters changed their methods following the 2002 election. Several indices of the accuracy of the polls are estimated. All lead to the conclusion that between 2002 and 2007 there was no improvement in the estimation of the main candidates’ votes, and particularly of Le Pen's vote. Underestimated in 2002, Le Pen's vote was overestimated by the same margin in 2007, and the polls conducted between the two rounds showed a substantial underestimation of the Le Pen vote cast in the first-round election. However, on the positive side, contrary to 2002, the left versus right balance was almost perfectly estimated, and there was some variability among the pollsters’ estimates, hinting that their estimates were more independent of each other than in 2002.
Received for publication October 15, 2007. Accepted for publication April 21, 2008.