As the elections in Mexico City have approached, the gap between the first two candidates has been closing. In the last three months, the advantage that the candidate of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) for the capital Government, Clara Brugada, maintained over her main rival, Santiago Taboada, of the Va por la CDMX alliance, has gone from 16 points to be 11 points. The effective preference for the Morenista 10 days before the appointment with the polls reaches 52%, while the nominee of the PRI, PAN and PRD coalition totals 41%, according to the latest measurement made by Enkoll for EL PAÍS and W Radio. The Citizen Movement candidate, Salomón Chertorivski, has been the one who has grown the most in voting intention since the process began, although he has not managed to get out of the bottom of the survey, which gives him 7%.
The candidates have just six days of campaign left, until the close of the electoral ban, to move the balance in their favor. Over the last five months, the names of the three candidates, who completely covered the city, grew substantially in the measurement of people who knew them. The preference, on the other hand, has moved little since the race began. The rapprochement between Brugada and Taboada, which can be seen on the map shown by all the measurements made throughout this year, has been gradual. And time is running out soon. This trend, which was already marked at the beginning of 2024, worried the Morena campaign in the capital. That is why they reinforced the candidate’s teams and poured many resources into stopping her as much as possible.
The opposition’s challenge is enormous in this race. The city has been in the hands of the left for 27 years. And Taboada’s profile is the opposite of the heads of government that the Chilangos have seen. The PAN member was fighting the election not only against Brugada, but against the leaders of the guinda party, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum. Both governed the capital and today maintain a very positive image among the city’s inhabitants. Enkoll’s measurements leave the president with 60% approval and the presidential candidate at 67%. The PAN member will also have to face the good image that Morena has, with an effective preference of 48%, compared to 26% for the PAN and 8% for the PRI.
Not everything is said, however, between now and June 2. A variable to take into account is the group of those who have decided the destination of their vote, but admit that they could modify it before the elections. Of all those surveyed, 28% acknowledged that they were susceptible to changing their mind. This uncertainty hits Brugada more than Taboada. In gross preference—which includes those who do not know who they will vote for or do not want to say—, 14% of the people who said they would elect the three-time mayor of Iztapalapa, may ultimately not do so. While only 11% who said they would support the licensed mayor of Benito Juárez admitted that they were not sure of eventually doing so.
Analysts and parties know that the biggest problem lies in participation, which in the last presidential elections was 63% of the population. So that the number of people who go to the polls that Sunday is high, candidates from all over the country, not just from the city, have focused a large part of their resources on informing the specific date of the election. This work has been reflected in the survey, which shows that 76% of those consulted—in the measurement carried out between May 19 and 21—knew exactly the day of the vote. A much higher number compared to the 31% who knew this last March.
In this year’s elections, participation is expected to be higher than the 2021 midterm elections, which was 52%, according to the National Electoral Institute (INE). Mexico’s democratic history says that presidential elections normally have a greater number of people who go to the polls. Among those consulted for this survey, at least 67% said that it was very likely that they would go out to vote that day. Against 18% who considered it somewhat probable and 11% who indicated that it was unlikely.
The opposition has placed part of its hopes in what they call hidden voting, the idea that there is a part of the electorate that does not dare to tell the pollster who they will vote for. Heidi Osuna, director of Enkoll, believes that in reality the factor that can drive results the most is participation. To carry out this survey, she details, they have mixed telephone consultations with home visits, because there were sociodemographic levels that were not accessible only through the telephone. “Entering buildings or private homes is practically impossible for the interviewer,” she says. For this reason, Osuna defends that this measurement constitutes “a representative sample” of the city.
The residents of the capital were asked which of all the problems facing the city they believe is the most important. A question that puts on the table the issues that are most disturbing and that the campaigns, with their focus on them, have tried to tackle with proposals. Insecurity has been the queen of concerns in this election, unlike other processes, in which corruption or lack of work were above all. 51% of those questioned pointed to insecurity and drug trafficking as the most serious conflict facing the capital. 15% pointed out corruption and 14% said the lack of water. In this last point you can see the effects that the drought and the contaminated water crisis have had on Benito Juárez. In January of this year, only 4% of people thought of the shortage of this liquid as the top priority. The factor that has risen the most portrays a problem that leftist governments have not yet been able to address.
With the data in hand, Osuna believes that Morena could perform better in these elections than it did in 2021, when it lost half of the mayoralties to the same opposition alliance it faces this time. For the analyst, there are factors that differentiate these elections from the others. One of them is the president’s approval, which three years ago registered the lowest of his, because it is about the end of the covid pandemic. At that time, the analyst recalls, the issue that most worried people was the economy, and not insecurity as it is now.
The director of Enkoll also assures that another point that affected Morena in 2021 was the poor evaluation that some of the then mayors who were seeking re-election had. In addition to the tragedy of Metro Line 12, which occurred a few weeks before the elections and damaged the image of Claudia Sheinbaum’s Government. What ended up happening was “a differentiated participation”, because the cherry voters had less participation than those of the opposition, who came out with more eagerness. These variants, she concludes, could tell a very different story on June 2 than three years ago.
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