MEXICO CITY (CN) — Upcoming federal and state elections in Mexico are shaping up to be the biggest in the country’s history. Citizens will vote for over 19,000 public service positions at the state and local levels — everything from Mexico City mayor to eight governors — but eyes will largely be on the country’s next head of state.
And according to a candidate recognition and public opinion poll published this week by consulting firm Buendía & Márquez, former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, the candidate for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s ruling Morena party, continues to lead the pack by what could be an insurmountable margin.
Sheinbaum — López Obrador’s favored candidate— has a commanding lead over her two contenders with 48% of respondents saying they would vote for her on the day of the survey, were it held that day. Election day is June 2, 2024.
Her share of the public’s approval was twice that of former Senator Xóchitl Gálvez, who made a splash when she came onto the scene over the summer, ruffling López Obrador’s feathers. In August, she was named the candidate for the three-party opposition coalition that recently changed its name to Strength and Heart for Mexico. Gálvez polled at 24% in this latest survey.
In third place was newcomer Samuel García of the Citizens’ Movement party. García is currently governor of the state of Nuevo León.
The Buendía & Márquez poll provides an accurate snapshot of the 2024 presidential race in Mexico ahead of the official campaign season, which begins on March 1 of next year, according to Salvador Vázquez del Mercado, a data researcher at the Mexico City-based consulting firm Integralia.
Beginning with the disclaimer that he has previously worked for Buendía & Márquez, Vázquez del Mercado said that the firm is one of the most trustworthy in Mexico.
“They’re very ethical, technically very good,” he said of the firm, adding that its latest poll is of “very high quality.”
The lopsided support for Sheinbaum was among the first details to jump out to Vázquez del Mercado. It indicates that without some kind of politically seismic event like a major scandal, Sheinbaum will likely be Mexico’s next president, he said. She would be the first female head of state in the country’s history.
“There’s no way to know what’s going to happen from now to June of the coming year, there are still six and a half months to go for something to happen,” he said. “But as things are now, support for Sheinbaum is basically homogenous.”
The poll shows that Sheinbaum holds massive leads in every demographic surveyed, broken down by sex, age and level of education. She has the support of 52% of men and 45% of women surveyed. Her lowest showing in the demographics was among voters aged 46 to 59, 41% of whom expressed their support for her. Her strongest showing was among voters with at least a high school education: 60% of respondents said they would vote for her.
On Monday, Gálvez attempted to make the best of the news, boasting that her public support had climbed 4 points since August, but the numbers told a drearier story. The poll found that the opposition candidate has problems with both public opinion and recognition.
While opinion numbers for Sheinbaum and García came out above zero, the poll found that respondents had more negative opinions of Gálvez than positive ones.
“The president’s attacks really did have the effect he wanted them to have, which was basically to paint a negative portrait of Gálvez for a segment of the population,” said Vázquez del Mercado. “She really doesn’t have much room to grow. Her negatives are already set against her.”
Gálvez’s recognition numbers looked pretty good over the summer, when she was a frequent target of those attacks from López Obrador during his daily morning press conferences. But after he stopped the attacks at the order of the federal electoral authority, she dropped from the national conversation.
“The moment the president began to ignore her, Xóchitl stagnated,” said Vázquez del Mercado.
As for 35-year-old and social media savvy García, he appears to be going after Mexico’s youngest voters, who notoriously refrain from voting, but Vázquez del Mercado said that his 2024 run is likely meant to set him up for a serious go at the presidency in 2030.
Political analyst Carlos Bravo Regidor agreed that Sheinbaum’s lead is “comfortable” enough to get her through to a win on election day, barring some kind of earth-shattering event for her campaign.
In a column published Tuesday by the magazine Expansión, Bravo likened each candidate to classroom tropes, calling Sheinbaum the “teacher’s pet,” Gálvez the “hot mess,” and García the “show-off.”
Sheinbaum shows loyalty and discipline to the president, but has an arrogance problem, he wrote. Gálvez is spontaneous, but disorganized and lazy. García is positively disruptive, but he is frivolous and vain.
Buendía & Márquez broke respondents down into six categories, the largest of which denoted voters who support Morena, but who are not well informed on either its candidate or the issues. These made up 30.6% of respondents.
Bravo and the pollsters both said that this group will be key to winning the National Palace next summer, but like the Republican opponents of former President Donald Trump in the United States, Sheinbaum’s opponents will have to walk a fine line not to upset the Morena base.
“They can’t go too aggressive against Morena, or they will provoke a defensive reaction,” Bravo said. “But if they’re not aggressive enough, those voters won’t move.”
Gálvez will likely have to revamp her image in order to get at those voters, according to Felipe López Veneroni, a political communication professor at Mexico’s National Autonomous University.
She and Sheinbaum make a quirky pair of contradictions. While she has humble, Indigenous roots, Gálvez has come to be a millionaire business owner running for a coalition of Mexico’s three most conservative parties. And while Sheinbaum comes from an elite academic family, she is running to represent Morena’s base of Mexico’s poor and historically underserved.
“Gálvez hasn’t been able to come through as a genuine popular candidate,” said López Veneroni. “She’s more like a cartoon or caricature than a genuine person from the Indigenous community. She’ll have to present herself as what she is or break with the parties that are supporting her.”
Gálvez also needs to propose a tangible policy platform, something she has yet to do so. Sheinbaum, on the other hand, appears to have enough support derived from López Obrador's blessing to be able to overcome the paradox of her background and win the presidency.
Follow @copycopeland
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
