Claudia Sheinbaum received more votes in last Sunday’s presidential election than any previous candidate for Mexico’s top job, surpassing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s 2018 tally by more than 5 million votes.
Final election results show that Sheinbaum, candidate for an alliance made up of the ruling Morena party, the Labor Party (PT) and the Ecological Green party of Mexico (PVEM), received 35.92 million votes, or 59.75% of all ballots cast.
Her tally was more than double that of opposition bloc candidate Xóchitl Gálvez, and she won 5.8 million more votes than López Obrador, who in 2018 became the most-voted-for winner in a presidential election in Mexico.
Support for Sheinbaum in percentage terms was the highest since Miguel de la Madrid won the 1982 presidential election with just under 71% of the vote. De la Madrid represented the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which was Mexico’s hegemonic political force at the time.
López Obrador’s won 53.2% of the vote in 2018, while former presidents Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-18) and Felipe Calderón (2006-12) both prevailed with less than 40% of the vote.
Gálvez, who represented the National Action Party (PAN), the PRI and the Democratic Revolution Party in last Sunday’s election, received just over 16.5 million votes or 27.45% of the total.
Her tally exceeded that of the 2018 presidential election runner-up, Ricardo Anaya of the PAN, by almost 3 million votes.
Jorge Álvarez Máynez, the Citizens Movement (MC) party candidate in the 2024 presidential election, received 6.2 million votes or 10.3% of all ballots cast.
National Electoral Institute data shows that a total of 60.11 million votes were cast in the presidential election. Just over 1.4 million votes were invalid, while more than 83,000 people cast ballots for unregistered candidates. Turnout among eligible voters was just over 61%.
Sheinbaum thanks voters for their support
In a video message on Thursday, President-elect Sheinbaum noted that her vote tally was 35.8 million with 99.8% of the vote counted.
¡Gracias, gracias, gracias! Más de 35 millones de votos. pic.twitter.com/j80K7jDZ3t
— Dra. Claudia Sheinbaum (@Claudiashein) June 6, 2024
Claudia Sheinbaum shared a message of thanks on her social media accounts on Thursday.
Before that, she thanked the Mexican people for their support last Sunday.
“This message is to say to you, thank you, thank you, my heartfelt thanks,” Sheinbaum said. “… The truth is I’m moved.”
Sheinbaum, who will be sworn in as Mexico’s first female president on Oct. 1, said she was “convinced” that the presidential election result equated to “recognition from the people of Mexico that we’re on the right track.”
She also said that citizens had demonstrated “trust” that her government will “continue moving forward with the fourth transformation,” as the political project initiated by López Obrador is known.
“Our conviction has always been and will continue to be openness to dialogue, strengthening of freedoms, democracy and of course closeness to the people of Mexico. We’re going to continue building shared prosperity. I’m not going to fail you. We’re going for the second story of the fourth transformation,” Sheinbaum said.
For her part, Gálvez announced in a video message on Wednesday that she had decided to return to the Senate to finish the six-year term she began in 2018. She stepped down as a senator in late 2023 to contest the presidential election.
Gálvez and PAN leader Marko Cortés said earlier this week that the opposition would file challenges against what they believe was an unfair presidential election, in which López Obrador intervened and “the entire state apparatus” was used to favor Sheinbaum.
With reports from El Economista and Forbes México
