by Miguel Toro Two weeks away from election day, the race has entered a period of scattered attention from Mexican voters. After the final debate last Tuesday June 12th, most people are talking about the soccer World Cup –especially after Mexico’s astonishing victory over favorites-to-win and defending champions Germany. So despite having tons of political ads during the games, they will most likely have a reduced effect as the election is not perceived to be contested. As of today, left-wing candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador is ahead of the polls with 49% of effective voting intentions in Oraculus.mx’s “poll of polls”. This represents a 21 percentage point lead over runner-up Frente (PAN + PRD + Citizens’ Movement Party) candidate Ricardo Anaya and 29 percentage point advantage over incumbent party PRI candidate José Antonio Meade. AMLO sits comfortably at the lead with a 94% probability of winning the presidency. Figure 1. Poll of Polls (up to June 18th, 2018) Lopez Obrador’s continues to grow 2 week away from election day Source: Oraculus.mx But the main thing that happened last week was the third and final debate where the presidential candidates discussed about their economic platforms through segments that involved education, health, poverty alleviation and sustainable development policies. It was a typical Mexican debate in which there were more attacks between the candidates than actual detailed proposals, but in general it seemed that José Antonio Meade showed more expertise answering the questions and explaining how he would implement solutions, while front-runner AMLO responded saying that corruption was the root of all of the problems and by solving it (through his mere presence in power) his policies would actually have an impact on Mexican wellness. Meanwhile, Ricardo Anaya had to counterattack the accusations made by government and PRI officials that he is corrupt after the leaked video framing him. If you want to hear a much greater explanation of the debate, you can listen to our latest episode of the “Expert Take” podcast where a panel of experts dives into each topic. The other interesting element that occurred during last week was the big survey from Berumen that was paid by the Mexican Republic Patron Confederation (COPARMEX). This was a massive survey of more than 13 thousand interviews that analyzed each of the main races in this election process. Their results confirmed the standings and overall margins for the presidential race, while also giving further detail into the Congressional elections and the 9 governorship races. With respect to the Congressional races, in the Chamber of Deputies they show that left-wing Morena is headed to be the biggest party with over 40% of the seats. In conjunction with the Labor Party (PT) and the Evangelical Social Encounter Party (PES) which conform AMLO’s coalition, they are set to hold a majority in Congress. Meanwhile in a distant second place will be the right-wing PAN and further down the incumbent party PRI. The complete distribution of lower house seats can be seen in Figure 2. In the Senate, Morena is also poised to be the biggest party being very close to holding on its own majority. As with the Chamber of Deputies, PAN and PRI are distant second and third places. Figure 2. Chamber of Deputies seats by party Lopez Obrador’s coalition has a good chance of having majority Source: Own elaboration with data from the Coparmex sponsored survey Figure 3. Senate seats by party[1] Lopez Obrador will only need a couple of seats to secure a majority Source: Own elaboration with data from the Coparmex sponsored survey With respect to the governor races, 6 out of the 9 elections will be won with ample margins, while there are 3 contested elections. Morena party will win the governorships of Chiapas, Mexico City, Morelos and Tabasco, while the PAN will win continue its almost 30 year government in the state of Guanajuato and Citizen’s Movement party will win the state of Jalisco (whose capital is Guadalajara, second most populated city in Mexico). The races in Puebla, Veracruz and Yucatan are still a toss-up where Morena is trying to edge out the PAN in Puebla and Veracruz and the PRI has the lead in Yucatan followed closely by both PAN and Morena. But regardless of how these races turn out, it can be expected that the great winner of this election will be AMLO who is receiving a substantial amount of votes for his party in the most important races. [1] The numbers on the Congressional races have raised some eyebrows as they seem to be undercutting some of the small party’s percentages. For example, it seems that Citizen’s Movement party (Movimiento Ciudadano) will most likely have at least the 2 majority rule senators from the state of Jalisco as their governor candidate, Enrique Alfaro, will most likely win the election with ease (as their own survey shows). Based on the fact that Mexicans tend to not divide up their votes, if MC controls the Jalisco governorship, it will most likely also have their 2 senators.
2 Comments
Ed
6/22/2018 04:34:44 pm
Hi - I was wondering why you state in the article that the Morena coalition are set to win a majority in the Chamber of Deputies when the poll suggests they will fall short of 251 seats? Thank you
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Manuel Franco
4/24/2023 10:53:19 am
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