Harris Interactive and Toluna Recap a Successful Campaign for 2022 French Presidential Election

For Harris Interactive and Toluna, the French presidential campaign began in March 2021, when the first wave of the Voting Intentions Barometer was published in Challenges, a weekly French publication. Since then, Harris Interactive and Toluna have become key players in the campaign by deploying regular studies with a range of methodologies, which have in turn provided observers, analysts, and stakeholders with the insights they need to understand the issues at stake in the election.

In the wake of the election, we are delighted by both the scale and quality of the team’s efforts, which have provided further proof of the subject matter and methodological expertise of the Harris Interactive and Toluna analysts. This feeling of a great collective success is reinforced by the satisfaction expressed by our partners over the last few months.

In recent months, we are proud to have achieved:

• 44 waves of voting intention barometers for the presidential election in partnership with Challenges, which gave French citizens an understanding of campaign trends from Spring 2021 onward. In fact, Harris Interactive and Toluna were the first to unveil many of the emerging trends in voter opinions, including the potential of Éric Zemmour’s candidacy, the effects of the war in Ukraine on the campaign dynamics, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s momentum in the first round. Our experts were also the only ones to identify the rise in voting intentions for Emmanuel Macron ahead of the first round;
• Innovative approaches, including testing an alternative voting method for the presidential election in partnership with Epatant. This included three waves of voting intention barometers to experiment with a voting method that did not just focus on French citizens’ support for candidates, but also explored why candidates may be rejected—a major issue of the campaign;
• 4 events in partnership with Euros/Agency to analyze and comment on polling results with experts on the major campaign themes: trust in institutions, purchasing power, and international dynamics. These events attracted nearly 150 people to reflect on the major trends in public and political life in France;
• 2 days of insightful election coverage aired on our media partners, M6 and RTL. Harris Interactive and Toluna provided accurate estimates that enabled French citizens to confidently know the final results of each round of the presidential election by 8pm each day.
• 2 “Voting Day” surveys carried out for M6 and RTL on each election day, interviewing over 7,000 people per round. With the largest sample in the entire market, we provided analysts and observers with firm analysis and perspective on the issues that counted in the election.

Now that the presidential election has concluded, the Harris Interactive and Toluna teams have turned their eyes toward the French legislative elections, which will take place on June 12^th and 19^th. They have remained in the news by being the first to publish a wave of voting intentions for the legislative elections, alongside a projection of the National Assembly.

To follow Harris Interactive’s and Toluna’s continued coverage of the French election season, head to our website and social media channels (Twitter, LinkedIn).