LatAm in Focus: A Pre-Midterm Pulse Check on the Mexican Electorate
LatAm in Focus: A Pre-Midterm Pulse Check on the Mexican Electorate
Can President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s governing coalition keep its supermajority in the Chamber of Deputies? El Financiero’s Alejandro Moreno tells us what the polls indicate.
With 21,000 seats up for grabs across all 32 states, Mexico’s June 6 midterms will be of huge importance. Not only will voters select candidates for a record number of posts, but they’ll also get the chance to signal their assessment of the political movement of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador—better known as AMLO—even if he’s not on the ballot. Will his newcomer party, Morena, build on its sweep of the 2018 elections? And what are the chances Morena’s coalition will win a supermajority in the Chamber of Deputies, where all 500 seats are up for grabs?
“In every single midterm election since 1997, the governing party has lost support and lost presence in the lower chamber of Congress,” says Dr. Alejandro Moreno, head of public opinion polling at El Financiero. He explains polls indicate Morena is unlikely to buck that trend. Still, he tells AS/COA Online’s Carin Zissis that support for AMLO’s party is similar to where it was in the last election, even if there have been shifts in where that support is coming from. “The younger voters, who were the first and most immediate supporters of López Obrador, are the first ones to abandon him,” says Moreno, who adds that a rise in support among older voters is compensating for that loss.
See Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s approval levels at the end of his six-year term.
"Polls offer this opportunity to have an X-ray of the electorate."
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s political party is vying to cement its legacy on June 6. AS/COA Online explore coalitions and voter concerns.