Just as Donald Trump broke through the “blue wall” of Democratic-leaning states for his upset win, Marine Le Pen hopes that populist rage will enable her to break through the “republican front” blocking her way to the French presidency.

The high polling numbers for the leader of France’s far-right National Front make it highly likely that she will be one of the top two candidates in the initial round of presidential voting next spring.

But in France’s two-stage voting system, she would have to face the other top vote-getter in a runoff vote. Up till now, France’s mainstream parties from both the left and right have urged their voters to unite against National Front candidates in these runoffs, blocking them from winning a majority.

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The establishment parties portray this “republican front” as a defense of the French Republic itself, with all the democratic values it stands for, against what they see as the xenophobic and nationalist, if not outright fascist, tenets of the National Front.

Marine Le Pen, daughter of National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, has worked to soften the party’s rhetoric and broad its appeal, even to the extent of expelling her father from the party for his provocative comments.

She is now pinning her hopes on French voters being emboldened both by the British referendum victory for leaving the European Union and by the surprise win of an insurgent Trump over establishment candidate Hillary Clinton.

The Brexit vote was seized upon by Trump as evidence of global populist uprising — one missed by the mainstream media and pollsters. For many, the Trump victory now validates the Brexit vote, and perhaps stiffens the spine of the British government against headwinds from Brussels and its own Parliament.

Le Pen is counting all this on spilling over into the French contest.

The Republicans, the conservative party of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, will choose its candidate in two-stage open primary voting over the next two Sundays, and that individual is virtually certain to get into the runoff vote for president.

But the Trump victory may be having an impact already, as Alain Juppé, long seen as the runaway favorite to win the Republicans’ nomination, is slipping in the polls.

Juppé, the 71-year-old mayor of Bordeaux who was the longtime aide-de-camp for former French President Jacques Chirac, carries more than a whiff of corruption as part of his baggage.

Both Chirac and Juppé were belatedly convicted of embezzlement in connection with no-show jobs in the Paris city hall for party operatives when Chirac was mayor of the French capital. The two men received suspended sentences and temporary bans on holding office.

If, as current polls suggest, the presidential runoff vote would pit Juppé against Le Pen, that would cast Le Pen as the insurgent change agent, like Trump, and Juppé as the oh-so familiar establishment figure carrying decades of baggage, like Hillary Clinton.

Sarkozy himself, who failed in his re-election bid in 2012, is running for his party’s nomination in this month’s primary, but he is hobbled by his unpopular first term and by a cloud of scandal over campaign donations.

The surprise in recent polls has been the rise of a third candidate, François Fillon, who served as prime minister in Sarkozy’s government. Fillon is as dull as they come as a candidate, but voters may be getting worried that Juppé will be as vulnerable as Hillary Clinton in the general election.

Like Trump, Le Pen appeals to working-class voters frustrated by the impact of economic integration and worried about immigration. Many of these voters have traditionally supported left-wing parties, but have been disappointed by the performance of President François Hollande’s Socialist Party and may be open to Le Pen’s anti-EU, antieuro EURUSD, +0.02% , anti-immigrant message.

The disarray on the left is further boosting her hopes. Hollande, whose approval rating has dropped to 15%, has refused to accept the fact that he has no chance at re-election and is blocking possible rivals within the party.

This has not stopped his prime minister, Manuel Valls, from letting it be known he will jump in as soon as Hollande rules out a new bid. But Valls has had to share in voters’ disfavor with Hollande and his own approval rating has dropped below 20%. Moreover, his centrist economic policies hold little appeal for the traditional leftist voter.

Another member of Hollande’s government, Emmanuel Macron, grew impatient with the impasse and quit his post as economy minister in August to prepare a campaign for the presidency, which he launched this week. As is often the case in France’s fluid political environment, the brash 38-year-old former banker formed his own ad hoc party for the campaign, En Marche, or “Forward.”

As a pro-business candidate “neither of the left or the right,” Macron, who has never held elective office, hopes to appeal to young urban professionals. That would not be enough to win an election, but it could drain votes from the gray and discredited candidates of the mainstream parties.

In polling this summer, Juppé beat Le Pen by nearly 40 points in a head-to-head contest in the second round of presidential voting. But betting odds on Le Pen have narrowed dramatically in the wake of Trump’s victory.

What remains to be seen is if Le Pen, spurred by the victories for Brexit and Trump, can convince voters that she is “republican” enough to lead the nation.