Despite their limits, the polls are precious to give an idea of the opinion at the moment T. In this regard, Valérie Pécresse did not seem the best placed on paper to win the right to the presidential election in 2022.
Yet it is she that the members of the Republicans have appointed to represent them.
The president of the Île-de-France region beat the deputy Éric Ciotti by 61% of the votes against 39% in the second round of the primary, according to the results communicated on Saturday.
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Images of Valérie Pécresse's victory
When we look at the most recent opinion polls, one observation systematically emerges.
Xavier Bertrand always seemed the most able to qualify for the second round of the presidential election, or even to win.
In an Elabe poll released on November 24, the president of the Hauts-de-France region was given 13% of the vote if the election was to take place on Sunday.
In the event of a candidacy of Valérie Pécresse, she obtained only 9%.
As for Eric Ciotti, he would have obtained only 5% of the votes in a hypothetical first round of the presidential election.
Impact of the application?
An Ifop poll published three days later gave similar orders of magnitude: 13% for Xavier Bertrand and 10% for Valérie Pécresse.
Each time, such a score would have been insufficient to qualify for the second round.
Remember that the LR Congress has never been the subject of surveys among members, faced with the impossibility of identifying a representative sample.
The candidates were therefore never tested among themselves.
The duo Emmanuel Macron / Marine Le Pen seems solidly in the lead, especially since Eric Zemmour has lost ground in recent weeks.
But we know that the polls only take into account voters who are already certain of going to vote, that the campaign is still long and still has many surprises in store.
It remains to be seen whether Valérie Pécresse will benefit from a “boost effect” following her designation as LR candidate, and all the media attention surrounding her designation.
In any case, Valérie Pécresse is the right-wing contender who worried Macronie the most.