Politics: Morena and the opposition alliance face difficult choices as they pick gubernatorial candidates
The election next June will be the largest Mexico has ever experienced with the more than 3,500 offices to be filled, including President and both chamber of Congress. Polls currently show the incumbent Morena party is favored to retain the presidency, and while its goal of achieving a two-thirds majority in Congress is out of reach, a simple majority may prove possible.
One factor that will help determine how well both the governing party and the opposition coalition fare next year is how strong their down-ballot choices prove to be, starting with the nine gubernatorial contests, especially the six that jointly represent a combined 35% of the total electorate. The biggest prize is Mexico City. There Morena is deeply divided over whether to run a career security official popular with the middle class voters who abandoned the party in 2015, flipping control of much of the capital to the opposition, but whom the left wing of the party views as having a checkered past; or the mayor of the capital’s most populous municipality (Iztapalapa), who has also long been close to Claudia Sheinbaum and even closer with President Lopez Obrador and enjoys greater popularity with the more working class eastern half of the capital. The opposition’s chances are much weaker now that popular favorite Xóchitl Gálvez has decided to run instead for president.
Eight of the remaining contests are also in states with sizable electorates, and three of those are likely to go to the locally incumbent parties (PAN, MC, and Morena, respectively). But in almost all the nine states there are numerous contenders competing for the nominations of their respective parties/coalitions who could also affect the final outcome. In this report, we analyze how how those races are shaping up and their potential national implications.
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