Friends,neighbors, and sponsors in the 2016 French primary election. Revisiting a classical hypothesis from aggregated-level data

Using the concept of “friends and neighbors”, we attempt to answer a main question: Do candidates in a primary election perform best in territories where they benefit from many supporters among local representatives and partisan networks? Therefore, we collected a unique data set during the French right and center primary election of November 2016. For all candidates, in addition to their political career and the strength of their local anchorage, we considered the sponsorships they received from parliament members and local representatives. After fleshing out these data, we included it in a multivariate analysis of mobilization and votes in French departmental elections. Particularly, we distinguished local anchorage from the ability to mobilize partisan resources. Our results show that both phenomena have an important impact on primary outcomes.