Jeff Pachoud | AFP | Getty Images
A man passes by campaign posters for the French presidential election, on official billboards on April 21, 2017 in Lyon, ahead of the first round of the French presidential election which will take place on April 23.
The struggles of political pollsters to accurately forecast the outcome of votes was a major theme of 2016.
Early indications of the first round of the French election show that may not be the case this time.
Centrist Emmanuel Macron is seen winning 24 percent of the first round vote, with far-right candidate Marine Le Pen projected to win 22 percent of the vote, setting them up for a May runoff, according to Harris poll estimates. An average of recent pre-election polls compiled by the Huffington Post forecast that those candidates would take roughly that percentage of the vote.
Speculation swirled that Le Pen, an anti-globalist candidate seen in the mold of U.S. President Donald Trump, could muster more support than polls indicated — just as Trump did in many key U.S. states during his own elections. If early indications from pollsters hold, that appears not to be the case, in the first round at least.
