Mexico's July 1 Gubernatorial Races and Their Impact on the Presidential Contest

Hemisphere Focus

Eyes are on Mexico's July 1 presidential showdown in which Enrique Peña Nieto (EPN) of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) holds a robust lead despite a short-lived surge in May by Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as AMLO) backed by the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD), the Workers' Party (PT), and Citizens' Movement (MC) - with Josefina Vázquez Mota of the National Action Party (PAN) running a close third.  Gabriel Quadri de la Torre, candidate of the SNTE teachers' union's New Alliance Party (PANAL) trailed the pack.  As the battle for Los Pinos presidential residence enters its final days, contests in the Federal District and six states offer insights into:

  • The "Peña Nieto effect" (the likelihood of his win sweeping other PRI candidates to victory);
  • The likelihood that the PAN will lose not only the presidential showdown, but state houses in its Jalisco and Morelos strongholds;
  • The potential for a long-shot leftist candidate to stage upsets in Morelos and Tabasco; and
  • The growing #YoSoy132 movement, christened the "Mexican Spring."

 

George W. Grayson