Who is the leading left-wing candidate in the French election?
Benoit Hamon is the presidential candidate representing the party that is currently ruling France.
Yet it is all but certain that he will lose the upcoming election. The latest polls see him behind even Jean-Luc Mélenchon, candidate of the left-wing movement La France insoumise, who is frequently described as a ‘firebrand’ of the ‘hard left’.
Real-time data on the French public’s online news consumption only cements further the impression that Hamon is struggling to pull decisively ahead of Mélenchon and thus become the dominant candidate of the left. According to this data, there has been more interest in Mélenchon than in Hamon for most of the campaign so far.
The general consensus among commentators is that the French public are entirely unenthusiastic about the prospect of another Socialist president. One reason for this may be that Hamon has been unsuccessful in distancing himself from the highly unpopular Socialist incumbent, Francois Hollande.
Whatever the reason for Hamon’s poor performance so far, data describing the online news consumption of the French public confirms that Mélenchon is, to most voters, the more interesting candidate. Hamon has been the worst performing candidate in the French Election Tracker, which compares how much interest each candidate is receiving online in real time. Hamon led in the French Election Tracker only 3.7% of the time since 6 February 2017, and has attracted below-average interest over 85% of the time.
Running to the left of the ruling Socialists, and without the backing of a major party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon would appear to be the underdog in the fight over left-wing voters’ attention. However, the French Election Tracker reveals that Mélenchon can do exceptionally well over sustained periods of time. Mélenchon has clearly beaten his rival Hamon in terms of attracting interest from the public during the campaign so far.
Mélenchon received higher levels of interest among online news consumers than Hamon for 73% of the time since 6 February 2017. He also received above-average levels of interest on more occasions than Marine Le Pen, and was the candidate receiving the highest level of interest for roughly one fifth of the time (18.5%). Mélenchon performs even more strongly relative to other candidates on social media.
The recent TV debate did not change this picture. During this debate, Mélenchon received the second-highest level of interest online, behind only Marine Le Pen. For an entire week after 21 March 2017, Mélenchon was ahead of Hamon without interruption. Except during the first few hours after the debate, he was also ahead of Emmanuel Macron, the front-runner, and Marine Le Pen.
Why does it matter? Mélenchon and Hamon are battling over who is the more viable candidate of the left, with Hamon’s language becoming more drastic as he fails to attain a clear lead over Mélenchon. Unless one of these two candidates drops out soon, neither has a chance of making it to the final round of the election if current polls are correct. The question of who is more viable — Hamon or Mélenchon — is a crucial one for deciding who ought to step aside.
The French Election Tracker supports the contention of Mélenchon’s campaign that the outsider challenging the President Hollande’s record in office is better placed to compete with the opposition than the Socialist Party’s chosen candidate. Our tracker, which is based on billions of data points, casts doubt on the Hamon campaign’s assertion that he is indisputably the better choice for a united left.
Traditional polls recently showed Mélenchon moving ahead of Hamon. Given recent high-profile polling misses, declining response rates and the inherent impossibility of predicting the outcome of election races when margins of error are larger than the gaps between candidates, real-time and big data-driven indicators like the French Election Tracker offer a new way to follow how election campaigns unfold. The more data becomes available, the greater their potential — until perhaps one day polls themselves become irrelevant.
You can sign up to receive the latest news about the French Election Tracker and other data showcases here. For more frequent updates, follow @EchoboxHQ on Twitter. For more about Echobox, go to www.echobox.com.
