Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Thursday, February 22, 2018

Presidential poll in Mexico

A snapshot of how the candidates rank in February.

Mexican leftist extends lead in presidential race, poll shows

Mexican leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador increased his lead ahead of July’s presidential election, while the ruling party’s contender continued his downward trend, according to an opinion poll published in a local newspaper…

Obrador

Lopez Obrador, who has run twice for president, led the pack of hopefuls with 27.1 percent in February, according to the survey by pollster Mitofsky published in El Economista newspaper.

The former Mexico City mayor gained 3.5 percentage points over Mitofsky’s January poll, putting him nearly 5 percentage points ahead of his closest rival…

Former finance minister Jose Antonio Meade of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) came in third with 18.0 percent, down from 18.2 percent in January and 19.4 percent in December.

Meade’s campaign has been dogged by a backlash against PRI following a series of corruption scandals and a murder rate that surged last year to a record high.

Ricardo Anaya, former leader of the center-right National Action Party (PAN), ranked second with 22.3 percent, up from 20.4 percent in the prior survey, the poll said. Anaya resigned from the party in December to pursue the presidency in an alliance with the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD)…

Of 1,000 people surveyed in the poll, 31.4 percent said they believe Lopez Obrador will become Mexico’s next president, up from 25 percent in January. That compared with 23.4 percent who see Meade winning, and 20.7 percent that believe it will be Anaya…

The survey was conducted Feb. 9-11 and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.