This text is customized from AQ’s particular report on Latin America’s election super-cycle
This web page was final up to date on March 1.
Mexico will maintain the most important common election in its historical past in a single-round vote on June 2. Voters will elect candidates for president, all 128 seats within the Senate, all 500 seats within the Chamber of Deputies, 9 governors and 1000’s of native workplaces.
This web page consists of the three presidential candidates main in February polling from El Financiero, listed in alphabetical order by final identify. We are going to sometimes replace this web page to replicate developments within the campaigns.
AQ additionally requested a dozen nonpartisan consultants on Mexico to assist us establish the place every candidate stands on two spectrums: left versus proper on financial issues, and a extra personalistic management model versus an emphasis on establishments. We’ve printed the typical response, with a caveat: Platforms evolve, and so do candidates.
This piece is a part of AQ’s ongoing protection of upcoming elections.
Jorge Álvarez Máynez | Xóchitl Gálvez | Claudia Sheinbaum
Jorge Álvarez Máynez
38, nationwide legislator
Movimiento Ciudadano (MC)
“I’m a rational optimist and militant of misplaced causes.”
HOW HE GOT HERE
Álvarez Máynez is serving his second time period in Mexico’s decrease home and coordinates MC’s congressional bench. He hails from Zacatecas, the place he served as a state legislator from 2010 to 2013, the yr he joined MC. Álvarez Máynez entered the race in January 2024 – he was the marketing campaign supervisor for the get together’s authentic candidate, Nuevo León governor Samuel García, who dropped out in December.
WHY HE MIGHT WIN
Voters in search of a “third approach” possibility would possibly choose Álvarez Máynez. MC is comparatively new political get together and has not allied itself with the principle coalitions within the presidential race. He could entice some anti-establishment voters, as he goals to vary the political system and has acknowledged that he’s “the one respectable possibility” on this election.
WHY HE MIGHT LOSE
Polls point out that Álvarez Máynez is a distant third behind Sheinbaum and Gálvez, and he has admitted that “eight of 10 Mexicans have no idea me.” That is the primary time MC is working its personal presidential candidate, and analysts have noticed that his long-shot candidacy could primarily serve to extend MC’s nationwide recognition and congressional seats.
WHO SUPPORTS HIM
Álvarez Máynez is courting youthful voters. He has acknowledged that his opponents are “trapped previously, in an outdated approach of doing politics” and that he “represents the long run.” Fellow critics of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) would possibly again him, together with some social progressives (he helps marriage equality and decriminalizing abortion).
WHAT HE WOULD DO
His get together profile describes a deal with labor rights, together with expanded maternity and paternity go away. He mentioned that his marketing campaign reviewed Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s hardline safety plan, and acknowledged that “if El Salvador, which has fewer assets than Mexico, was capable of sort out this challenge head on, Mexico can do it with a civilian technique that has peace as its goal.”
IDEOLOGY
Xóchitl Gálvez
60, senator
Frente Amplio por México (FAM)
“I’m an individual who generates wealth, however who can be very aware that this wealth needs to be redistributed.”
HOW SHE GOT HERE
Gálvez is a tech entrepreneur who ran the Indigenous Peoples’ Improvement Workplace underneath President Vicente Fox (2000-06), after which helped to type the Nationwide Indigenous Peoples’ Improvement Fee (CDI), changing into its first director (2003-06). In 2015, she received a race for mayor of a Mexico Metropolis district with the conservative Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) get together, and in 2018, she received a Senate seat.
WHY SHE MIGHT WIN
Gálvez will attempt to paint AMLO and his Morena get together as ineffective on points like crime and well being care. Gálvez grew up in a low-income Indigenous family within the state of Hidalgo, and could possibly painting Sheinbaum as a Mexico Metropolis elite out of contact with the general public.
WHY SHE MIGHT LOSE
AMLO stays widespread, and Sheinbaum has a cushty lead within the polls as his most popular successor. Furthermore, Morena has a a lot stronger nationwide political machine than Gálvez’s FAM coalition, composed of the PAN, the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) and the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI).
WHO SUPPORTS HER
Gálvez is widespread amongst those that have opposed AMLO’s efforts to malign critics and reform establishments just like the Nationwide Electoral Institute, together with many from Mexico’s massive center class, which she is focusing on in her marketing campaign. She additionally attracts some environmental voters and people who personal or work in small companies.
WHAT SHE WOULD DO
Gálvez would increase taxes on the rich, incentivize nearshoring and reform state oil firm Pemex, opening it to overseas funding and growing renewable vitality. She would proceed a few of AMLO’s tasks, together with a land hall to compete with the Panama Canal, and search to strengthen a generally chilly relationship with the U.S. She would additionally prioritize coaching applications for tech and innovation abilities like coding.
IDEOLOGY
Claudia Sheinbaum
61, former mayor of Mexico Metropolis
Movimiento de Regeneración Nacional (Morena)
“I’m not a duplicate of AMLO, however we’re going to defend the identical rules.”
HOW SHE GOT HERE
A former environmental scientist, Sheinbaum holds a Ph.D. in vitality engineering. Throughout a part of AMLO’s tenure as mayor of Mexico Metropolis, she served in his Cupboard as setting secretary. Sheinbaum was elected mayor of a Mexico Metropolis district in 2015, and received the 2018 Mexico Metropolis mayoral race with 48% of the vote. She resigned as mayor in June 2023 to run for president.
WHY SHE MIGHT WIN
Sheinbaum is well-known, and Morena is the nation’s largest get together—its governors run 22 of Mexico’s 32 states. Her shut affiliation with AMLO has contributed to her benefit within the polls, which she has led by a large margin to date. Voters could credit score her with safety enhancements throughout her time period as mayor of Mexico Metropolis; in July 2023, the capital’s murder price fell to its lowest degree in 16 years.
WHY SHE MIGHT LOSE
Different features of Sheinbaum’s document could alienate voters, who would possibly affiliate her with the lethal collapse of a faculty in her district in the course of the 2017 earthquake, and issues with Mexico Metropolis’s subway system, together with a metro overpass collapse that killed 26 individuals in 2021. Amid Mexico’s troublesome safety scenario, some voters will search a change from the AMLO years and assist opposition candidates.
WHO SUPPORTS HER
Morena’s loyal base consists of primarily lower-income voters, in addition to some social progressives. Sheinbaum is working as a part of a coalition between Morena, the Partido del Trabajo (PT) and the Partido Verde Ecologista de México (PVEM).
WHAT SHE WOULD DO
Sheinbaum has mentioned she would proceed a lot of AMLO’s insurance policies, however along with her personal stamp, which can contain a extra technocratic bent. Whereas she has emphasised the necessity to pursue renewable vitality, she has expressed assist for Mexico’s fossil fuel-centered state vitality corporations. Sheinbaum has vowed to take care of AMLO’s “republican austerity” and develop strategic infrastructure funding to advertise overseas direct funding and nearshoring.
IDEOLOGY
Tags: Claudia Sheinbaum, Elections 2024, Mexico, Xochitl Galvez
Any opinions expressed on this piece don’t essentially replicate these of Americas Quarterly or its publishers.
