Forecasting the 2012 French presidential election: Comparing vote function simulations and vote intention polls

In this article, we build a pooled time-series vote function for the 2012 French presidential election both at regional and national levels, taking into account our 2002 and 2007 past experiences. Particularly, a variable capturing the behaviour of François Bayrou’s voters has been included. From 2009 (Q1) up to 2011 (Q4), we have used the vote function in order to simulate the votes for the Left, the Right and the National Front, at the two rounds, asking ‘what would be the result of the vote if elections were held now’? Then we compare the vote simulations to the vote intention polls and we try to explain the differences between the two predicting methods. The Left and François Hollande are largely and continuously declared as the winners by the pollsters since 2009. On the contrary, the vote function simulations result in a final forecast giving Nicolas Sarkozy 50.6 per cent at the second round. Maintaining this slight advantage (while fixing Incumbent's popularity at a 32 per cent approval rate) requires the unemployment rate (U) not to exceed 9.6 per cent 4 months before the election date.