FRANCE UPDATE: The near-final list of candidates who are in the French runoffs is out.
Two days ago, 311 districts were going to have 3-way or 4-way runoffs.
Then, 200+ candidates dropped out to block far-right.
So: There'll be "just" 91 such runoffs this coming Sunday.
Le Monde breaks it down amazingly well:
—Left candidates:
132 dropped out
5 did not drop out in districts with an RN threat
—Macronists:
81 dropped out
16 didn't in "threat" districts
—Conservatives didn't care:
3 dropped out
12 didn't
lemonde.fr/les-decodeur...
This amount of coalescing against the far-right by no means looked certain as of a week ago.
While it can't just erase Macronists' extraordinarily equivocating 'pox on both houses' rhetoric during the campaign, it does make it a lot harder for the far-right to win on Sunday.
If it really was all or near all on both sides, that'd make plunge the RN 'only' win something like... 140 seats maybe?
But such perfect or even near perfect vote transfers is just VERY unrealistic. It's just not happening.
Is there any reasonable chance that the far-right might be prevented from taking majority control? Or that the far-right's opposition will have enough seats to form a coalition government to block RN?
If the polling is correct, the odds a far right majority is now pretty low - not i'm saying majority, not plurality.
Even at its peak though, it might have been 50%. Also polls aren't known for underestimating far right in French elections.
The Harris/Challenges poll today put the RN in the 190-220 vicinity, which * seems * about right given the consolidation efforts over the past couple days. Hard to forecast 500 races.
So there will be a hung parliament.
I know in France the president rules like a king if he’s got a friendly parliament, and is mostly a figurehead during “cohabitation” with a hostile PM (the most French thing to call it) but what happens if the French parliament hangs?!
