The 2021 French regional elections: beyond second-order effects

ABSTRACT Re-election of all incumbent Presidents, most of them from the Socialist Party (PS) or the Republicans (LR), was the main feature of the French regional elections of 20 and 27 June 2021. As a result, regional government remained controlled by the two parties that have dominated French politics since the early 1980s, even though both lost the 2017 presidential and legislative elections to newcomer Emmanuel Macron. The second-order elections model captures part of these dynamics, but the candidate-centered politics model provides a more appropriate framework to understand the general pattern of these regional elections. In a context of increasing split-ticket voting between regional and departmental elections, which were held at the same time, an era of divided government seems to have emerged since 2017.