On June 2, Mexico completed its largest election in history, electing a new president, both houses of Congress, nine governors, and numerous state and local offices.
Claudia Sheinbaum, the candidate for incumbent President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s Morena party, won about 60% of the vote, double the number of the main opposition candidate, Senator Xochitl Gálvez of the Strength and Heart for Mexico coalition.
While the results of the congress are still incomplete, Morena and its partners are working to make the necessaryTwo-thirds majorityAmend the Constitution to create an all-powerful executive branch with few checks on its powers for at least the next three years, and perhaps six.
Scheinbaum’s margin of victory, and her strong showing in congressional and state-level elections, can be attributed to several factors.
Lopez Obrador remains hugely popular, as does the cash-transfer program his administration has implemented — and pre-election polls suggest that recipients of the programs support Sheinbaum by roughly the same margin as the final result.
Many analysts also say voters continue to reject the traditional parties that made up Galvez’s coalition, with candidates chosen to represent them in Congress and at the state level being primarily veteran politicians with ties to past administrations.
Moreover, some argue the opposition has not presented a compelling case for reform or shown it has learned the lessons of its 2018 defeat to President Lopez Obrador and his Morena party.
One aspect of the opposition campaign may serve as a warning to the Biden team: Galvez and his supporters have argued that Sheinbaum’s election would threaten Mexico’s young and struggling democracy.
They cited proposed constitutional reforms that President Lopez Obrador presented to Congress in February which, if adopted, would largely dismantle independent institutions, reduce the size of Congress by eliminating proportional representation and introduce direct elections for Supreme Court justices, among other proposals.
During the election campaign, Lopez Obrador’s pastattackStatements on the National Electoral Institute (INE) and criticism of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for defending judicial independence.
Morena announced shortly after the election that he would use his two-thirds majority to pass these reforms when the new Congress convenes in September, one month before President Lopez Obrador’s term ends. Many independent analysts agree that if adopted, the measures would return Mexico to a state of one-party rule similar to that of 70 years ago, when the president was nearly omnipotent.
Despite aggressively promoting these concerns across Mexico (and during his visit to the United States), Gálvez lost in every state except one, and among every demographic group except college-educated adults and business owners. It is fair to say that voters’ economic interests (especially cash transfers) trumped the defense of the program.
Why does this concern the US, and specifically the Biden campaign? The Biden campaign argues that presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump is the biggest threat to American democracy.
They cite Trump’s attempt to block Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 election on January 6, 2021, his promise to use the judiciary to exact revenge on his political opponents, and his claim that he has complete immunity from criminal prosecution while in office to argue that he is unfit to be president. Many Democratic candidates have echoed these accusations, arguing that an election victory is the only way to protect American democracy.
The point of comparison is not the accuracy of these claims, but how US voters might respond. Mexico’s results might provide a predictive tool.
Recent polls show that more than 50% of Americans believe the U.S. is in a recession and that Biden is to blame, about two-thirds say they are living paycheck to paycheck, 49% believe the stock market is falling, and the number of Americans who say they’re “financially OK” has hit a four-year low.
There is plenty of data to counter these economic perceptions, but polling on economy and “wallet” issues remains stable. Donald Trump’s recent conviction in New York for falsifying business records has had limited impact on polling so far. This may suggest that American voters’ decisions, like those of Mexican voters, are based on perceptions of their country’s economic situation, rather than on somewhat abstract concepts like defense of institutions or threats to democracy.
The lesson the Biden campaign should learn from Galvez’s campaign may be that it’s hard to campaign on ideals when faced with economic hardships, real or imagined.
Andrew I. Rudman is director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
