^aDepartment of Political Science, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1032, USA. E-mail: abramson@msu.edu

Abstract

Nicolas Sarkozy was elected in the runoff election held against Ségolène Royal on 6 May 2007. Over 100 public preelection polls were conducted between 18 October 2006 and 21 April 2007. These polls strongly suggest that Sarkozy would not have won a series of head-to-head contests against all 11 of his opponents; that is to say, he would not have met the criterion for fairness in elections advanced by the Marquis de Condorcet in the 18th century. These polls suggest that François Bayrou met this criterion and that he would have defeated Sarkozy had he advanced to the second round of the elections.