Politics: How one less candidate affects the race
With her campaign deeply in debt and lacking any hope of attracting major funding sources, Margarita Zavala announced May 16 that she was bowing out of the presidential race and leaving her supporters to follow their conscience in deciding how to vote this summer. That decision suddenly left an estimated 4-5% of voters, or about 2 million people, weighing their options. How they decide might have a major impact on the election. Although the majority of them are most ideologically akin to Ricardo Anaya, a minority probably will not get over their disdain for a man whom they believe unscrupulously robbed Margarita of a chance to compete for the PAN nomination; such voters would most likely sit out the election. But most erstwhile Zavala supporters can be expected to turn to Anaya, if for no other reason than they share Zavala’s conviction that one of the greatest threats facing Mexico is the prospect of a López Obrador presidency.
It is hard to be sure whether Anaya was trailing AMLO by only six points before Zavala’s withdrawal from the contest (as the most recent GEA-ISA poll showed), or by double digits, as other surveys indicate. However, in the likelihood that two to three percentage points of voters will now migrate from the Zavala camp to that of the PAN nominee, and that Anaya may turn in another strong performance during Sunday’s debate, the race could soon be tightening up.
Most polls continue to show López Obrador with a comfortable lead, well into double-digit range, in which case a few more percentage points for Anaya will not suffice to make this a competitive race. But many polls were proven wrong in the last three presidential elections. Moreover, the perception that AMLO is already running away with the contest is in part because of the way some polling results are being presented publicly, as at least one showing well over a third of voters remaining undecided tends to statistically skew results in AMLO’s favor. We should have a much clearer picture of how the race stands when post debate polling numbers are released in early June, as more voters settle on their choice of candidate.
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