Just over four months before voters go to the polls, the contest between Claudia Sheinbaum and Xóchitl Gálvez to become Mexico’s first female president is tightening, according to the results of a recent poll.
Sheinbaum, the candidate for an alliance led by the ruling Morena party, remains the heavy favorite to win the June 2 presidential election with 48% support among 1,000 Mexican adults polled by the El Financiero newspaper this month.
But support for the former Mexico City mayor declined four points compared to El Financiero’s December poll, while the percentage of respondents who said they would vote for Gálvez increased two points to 32%, leaving a gap of 16 points between the two women vying to succeed President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is barred by the constitution from seeking reelection.
The gap in December was 22 points with Sheinbaum attracting 52% support and Gálvez, who will represent a three-party opposition alliance, backed by 30% of respondents.
The latest poll found 10% support for Citizens Movement (MC) party candidate Jorge Álvarez, who entered the race this month, with the remaining 10% of respondents indicating that they had not yet made up their minds about who they will vote for on June 2.
Almost one in five respondents — 18% — said they could change their mind about who they will support in the coming months, while 6% said they weren’t interested in voting.
The formal campaign period, during which the three presidential candidates will travel widely across Mexico and participate in three debates as they attempt to sell themselves to voters, commences March 1.
In addition to the presidency, around 20,000 federal, state and municipal positions will be up for grabs at the June 2 elections, which will be the largest in Mexican history.
At the federal level, citizens will elect 500 lawmakers to the Chamber of Deputies and 128 to the Senate.
Four in 10 poll respondents — 40% — told El Financiero they intended to support Morena in the Chamber of Deputies election, while 19% said they would vote for the National Action Party (PAN), which together with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) form the Strength and Heart for Mexico (Fuerza y Corazón por México) coalition led by Gálvez, a former senator.
Just over one in 10 respondents — 11% — said they would support MC in the lower house election, 10% expressed a preference for the PRI, 2% indicated they would back the PRD and 1% told El Financiero they would cast their ballots for the Labor Party (PT), an ally of Morena.
Combined support for Morena, the PT and the Ecological Green Party of Mexico — which together form the Let’s Keep Making History (Sigamos Haciendo Historia) alliance — was 41%, while that for the PAN-PRI-PRD bloc was 31%.
Morena and its allies currently have a majority in both houses of federal Congress, but not a supermajority that would allow them to make changes to the constitution without the support of opposition parties.
López Obrador, who has said he will send a range of constitutional reform proposals to the Congress next month, has urged citizens to not just support Morena’s presidential candidate on June 2, but also the ruling party’s congressional candidates in order to give the “Fourth Transformation” — the political movement he founded and which is now led by Sheinbaum — the qualified majority it needs to bring real change to Mexico.
With reports from El Financiero
