Politics: State of Mexico elections are key to the 2024 presidential race
Although still 10 months away, the 2023 elections in the State of Mexico are already shaping up to be a key political battle, with nationwide implications for the 2024 elections. The importance of this gubernatorial race is not only because the State of Mexico is the country’s most populated and richest in terms of its contribution to national GDP, but also due to the precedent it will set regarding the real strength of the two major political camps into which the country is divided: Morena and its allies versus an opposition with enormous defects but that could be strengthened considerably if it competes in a united alliance.
For the PRI, next year’s elections in the State of Mexico could be a life-or-death question, as the state is its last remaining bastion of support. A weakened PRI could also negatively affect the possibilities of a united opposition coalition in the 2024 race. The PRI wants to choose the coalition candidate in the State of Mexico, and it is unclear to what extent it plans to play hardball with its potential opposition allies.
Given what is at stake, it is not surprising that Morena has already effectively launched its campaign, with former Minister of Education Delfina Gomez's having won a series of opinion polls sponsored by the party through which it effectively chose its eventual nominee. Formally, Gomez is now only state coordinator of "Committees in Defense of the Fourth Transformation", which is a legal cover to pretend the campaign is complying with electoral laws that ban early campaigning. Morena currently enjoys a comfortable lead in opinion polls conducted in the state.
What will be key is whether the opposition—PRI, PAN and PRD—can overcome their differences and partisan choices of gubernatorial nominees, some of whom have already been announced, and form a united coalition. An additional challenge is to try to win over the Citizens Movement party, whose voters could provide the coalition alliance with a clear margin of victory, or, in a worst case scenario, work to minimize the extent to which an independent MC campaign might draw votes away from the coalition.
If the opposition can pull all of this off and placate the PRI, which still enjoys considerable clout as it wields control over the state government and a political machine built up over decades, it has a good shot at pulling off another come-from-behind win, as it did in 2021.
Now read on...
Register to sample a report