If the polls are right, voters across Mexico and in the nation’s capital will elect a new president and city mayor on Sunday who represent a political party that didn’t even exist five years ago.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador has a commanding lead in the race to become Mexico’s next president and in Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum is on track to become the next mayor.
Both candidates are running for a coalition known as Together We Will Make History, which is led by the leftist National Regeneration Movement or Morena party.
Morena was founded as a non-profit organization in 2012 and registered as a political party in 2014.
With less than a week until election day, the candidate widely known as AMLO has 46.3% voter support, according to today’s update of the Bloomberg poll tracker, while Ricardo Anaya is in second place with 26.5%.
The candidate for the right-left coalition led by the National Action Party (PAN) is just ahead of ruling party candidate José Antonio Meade, who has 24.7% support.
Independent candidate Jaime “El Bronco” Rodríguez, who took leave as governor of Nuevo León to contest the presidential election, is in a distant last place with just 2.9%.
A survey conducted by the polling firm Consulta Mitofsky put AMLO’s lead over Anaya at a slightly larger margin of 23%.
Another new poll — conducted by GEA-ISA — showed López Obrador with 44% voter preference, two points less than in its previous poll but still with a strong lead over Anaya, who had 28% support.
Meade rose five points in the GEA-ISA survey to 26%, just two points behind Anaya.
Both Meade and Anaya will be pushing this week to sell themselves as the second-place candidate in order to convince voters that they are the best choice for an anti-AMLO voto útil, or strategic vote.
However, their chances of closing the gap that separates them from AMLO appear slim. Bloomberg said “it looks like Lopez Obrador’s stars are aligned to win the presidential election and possibly sweep Congress.”
The official campaign period closes Wednesday. López Obrador will hold his final rally at Mexico’s largest sports stadium, the Estadio Azteca, in southern Mexico City.
In the capital, Sheinbaum — who previously served as the head of government in the southern Mexico City borough of Tlalpan — has a 13-point lead over her nearest rival in the mayoral race, according to a poll conducted by the newspaper El Financiero.
The Morena candidate has 45% support while Alejandra Barrales of the right-left coalition For Mexico in Front is in second place with 32%. The candidate for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Mikel Arriola, is in third place with 19%.
The four other candidates share the remaining 4% of voter preferences, according to the poll conducted between June 14 and 18 with 800 eligible voters.
The survey shows a tightening of the race compared to the last El Financiero poll, which showed Sheinbaum with a 20-point advantage over Barrales.
Morena is also on track to become the largest party in the city’s Congress, with 42% of those polled saying that they would vote for the party followed by 19% who said they intended to vote for the PAN and 15% who indicated a preference for the PRI.
The Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), which has governed the capital uninterruptedly since 1997, will be left as the fourth political force in the capital.
López Obrador represented the party as Mexico City mayor between 2000 and 2005 and contended the presidency in the 2006 and 2012 elections under the party banner, but later quit to head up Morena.
In addition to voting for a new president and mayor of Mexico City, voters will also renew the federal Congress and residents of eight states will elect a new governor.
Thousands of other state and municipal level positions are also up for grabs, including the head of government positions in the capital’s 16 boroughs.
A total of 100 candidates are vying to become the next mayor in those boroughs but of that number just seven hopefuls have provided declarations of their assets, business interests and tax records in accordance with the transparency initiative known as the 3de3.
Political violence has marred the electoral process, which officially began last September, but the president of the National Electoral Institute (INE), Lorenzo Córdova Vianello, has assured the Mexican public that the July 1 elections are not at risk.
Source: El Financiero (sp), Bloomberg (en), Milenio (sp)
