French President Emmanuel Macron has slightly widened his lead over his rival in the 24th election, the far-right Marine Le Pen, according to multiple voting intention polls on Wednesday.
Macron won the first round last Sunday with 27.85% of the vote while Le Pen got 23.15%, according to the final results published today by the Constitutional Council.
That same night, polls for the second round showed a margin of between 2 and 8 percentage points, always in favor of the outgoing president.
According to an Ipsos poll for public radio and Le Parisien newspaper released today, the liberal Macron would win the far-right Le Pen with 55% and 45% shares, respectively.
Another poll by Elabe for TV channel BFM gives Macron 53.5% of the vote, compared to 46.5% for Le Pen. That number represents a 1.5-point increase for the president and a similar drop for his rival in comparison to the previous sample.
Finally, the demographic institute Ipsos for the Paris Match magazine, the news channel LCI and Sud Radio put the head of state at 53%, with 47% for his rival.
Compared to yesterday, Macron gains 0.5 percentage points, the same figure Le Pen loses.
In the second round of the 2017 presidential election, Macron nearly doubled Le Pen with 66.1% to 33.9% of the vote, although election polls have warned for years that this gap will be much narrower in 2022. (i)