Politics: Photo Finish Possible in State Contests

MEXICO - Report 24 May 2017 by Guillermo Valdes and Esteban Manteca

The elections that will take place in four states June 4 will likely increase our understanding of the relative strength of each of the political parties heading into the presidential contest of 2018, as well as the momentum potential nominees will enjoy heading into their party’s respective candidate selection processes.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the PAN-PRD alliance in Nayarit is cruising toward victory as support for the incumbent PRI wanes because the current administration has become increasingly mired in corruption scandals.

But the outlook is much less clear in Coahuila, where the most recent polls indicate that PRI gubernatorial nominee Miguel Ángel Riquelme enjoys a rather comfortable lead even as new corruption scandals emerge regarding the governing Moreira family. One survey, however, shows PAN candidate Guillermo Anaya running neck and neck with his PRI rival. If the incumbent party were to lose the state it would be yet another example of the extent to which the public has become fed up with the record of corruption among PRI governors, but a PAN loss could bury the presidential ambitions of PAN Chairman Guillermo Anaya, especially if the PAN should make a very weak showing in the State of Mexico, something that looks increasingly possible.

One problem in both these states is the reliability of polls, many of which failed to predict the opposition upsets in a number of 2016 contests, apparently largely as a consequence of voters being especially reticent about admitting they were willing to vote against a long entrenched PRI.

The crucial contest in the State of Mexico now pits the PRI and Morena nominees, both of whom seem to have run up against a hard ceiling of support. Support for the PRD has held steady at around 15%, but the PAN nominee has fallen far from her initial lead and is now facing the prospect of a humiliating fourth place finish. With rumored efforts to build a last-minute PAN-PRD alliance having apparently failed, the outcome now hinges on how many opposition voters may decide to cast a tactical vote for Morena; otherwise the PRI will likely retain the state, as well as its hopes for being competitive on the national stage in 2018.

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