Original Article Strategic voting in the second round of a two-round system: The 2014 French municipal elections Bernard Dolez a , Annie Laurent b, * and Andre ´ Blais c a Universite ´ de Paris1, Paris, France. E-mail: bernard.dolez@univ-paris1.fr b CERAPS, Universite ´ de Lille, Lille, France. E-mail: annie.laurent@univ-lille2.fr c Universite ´ de Montre ´al, Montreal, QC, Canada. E-mail: andre.blais@umontreal.ca *Corresponding author. Abstract We examine strategic voting in the second round of the 2014 French municipal elections. We focus on the 96 cities where the number of lists remained constant (three, four, or five) in the two rounds, and we examine the evolution of the vote for these 329 lists from the first to the second round. We show that support for the top two lists (in the first round) systematically increases in the second round at the expense of the other lists. The second list makes as much progress as the first list, ruling out a bandwagon effect. Strategic desertion of the non-viable lists is more pronounced when the distance from the second list is high, and there is close competition between the top two lists. This suggests that voters in these cities behave in a second round of a two-round election as they do under FPTP, provided that there are many candi- dates/parties and that the second round is held under plurality. French Politics (2017) 15, 27–42. doi:10.1057/s41253-016-0010-9; published online 7 March 2017 Keywords: strategic voting; two-round voting system; French elections; municipal elections Introduction A voter casts a strategic vote when she votes for a party/candidate that is not her most preferred because she believes that this is a more effective way to influence the outcome of the election (Blais et al, 2001). 1 The most common (and studied) type of strategic voting occurs in a first-past-the post (FPTP) electoral system, when Ó 2017 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3419 French Politics Vol. 15, 1, 27–42 www.palgrave.com/journals