Macron Will Win the French Election

By James Rickards

This post Macron Will Win the French Election appeared first on Daily Reckoning.

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World markets breathed a sigh of relief on April 23 when the results of the first round of the French elections were announced.

The independent centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron, who markets prefer, edged out nationalist candidate Marine Le Pen in the first round of the French election. Macron won 23.8% of the vote to Le Pen’s 21.5%.

Macron is a left-of-center candidate with globalist views who supports the European Union and the euro. Le Pen is a right-wing nationalist running on an anti-immigration platform who has pledged to hold a referendum on leaving the EU.

Of four leading candidates in the first round, only those two survived to contest a second round scheduled for this Sunday, May 7.

Voters from four of the five major parties opposing Le Pen will likely unify around Macron, making him the likely winner in Sunday’s final round.

Immediately after the April 23 vote the polls showed Macron with a commanding lead in the second round, about 60% for Macron to 40% to Le Pen. Now, just two days remain until the election. And if anything, that lead has widened.

As of today, four new polls show Macron winning 62% of the votes on Sunday, compared to just 38% for Le Pen.

Macron’s strong showing in this Wednesday’s televised debate seems to have boosted his numbers. Le Pen was criticized by many for her aggressive approach, which may have alienated centrist voters.

But we only need look to Brexit and the election of Donald Trump to demonstrate the fallibility of polls.

With Brexit, most polls had given “Remain” a two-point lead heading into the referendum. It narrowed towards the day of the referendum, but most still gave “Remain” the edge.

Obviously “Leave” won.

Heading into November’s U.S. presidential election, most polls gave Hillary Clinton about a four or five-point lead. The last Ipsos tally, released just one day before the election, gave Clinton a 44% to 39% lead among likely voters and a 90% chance of winning the election.

We all know what happened.

The point being, polls aren’t always right. And despite the polls, there are several wild cards that could tip the race to Le Pen.

There are only three paths for Le Pen:

1. Complacency among Macron and his followers, who may not turn out on Sunday since they think the election is in the bag.

2. A “May surprise” from Putin if he hacked Macron and has some extremely damaging information.

A last-minute leak of damaging information that could disqualify Macron from serving as President of France. It is well known that Le Pen and Putin have a good relationship and …read more

Source:: Daily Reckoning feed

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