Photo courtesy of Luis Enrique Guerrero via Wikimedia Commons.
Morgan Nguyen ’26
Contributing Writer
Content warning: This article mentions state-sanctioned violence.
On June 2, 2024, millions of Mexicans will vote for their new government leaders.
With departing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador ineligible for reelection, the stage is set for a showdown between his protégée, Claudia Sheinbaum — who most recently served as mayor of Mexico City — and the representative of the conservative coalition, Xóchitl Gálvez, The New York Times reported. It also marks the first time a woman is set to become the president in Mexico’s history, PBS reported.
The leading presidential candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum, is currently favored by 63% of eligible voters, according to Oraculus polling in March, The New York Times reported. Senator Xóchitl Gálvez is currently trailing behind in second place with 31% of the vote. A third presidential candidate, Jorge Álvarez Máynez of the Citizen Movement Party, has lagged behind at 5%.
Regardless of who steps into office, the next president of Mexico will be responsible for a wide range of issues, including energy, migration, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, security, water and nearshoring, according to a report by the Wilson Center. In particular, maintaining a strong relationship with the United States, Mexico’s top trading partner, will be paramount in addressing many of the country’s domestic challenges.
In an interview with Mount Holyoke News, chair and associate professor of politics Cora Fernandez Anderson explained that “the main challenge for any president in Mexico is to tackle the rise of violence and insecurity in the country… This is a problem not exclusively of Mexico, but of many countries in the region.”
According to The New York Times, Sheinbaum’s successes on the campaign trail can largely be attributed to her mentor’s accomplishments since taking office in 2018. Obrador’s prioritization of popular anti-poverty programs gave him approval ratings that have surpassed the last four presidents in Mexico; as a result, Sheinbaum has been committed to emulating Obrador's approach, largely through his infrastructure projects, austerity measures and the widely supported social welfare programs.
However, she also differs from Obrador in key ways: As mayor of Mexico City from 2018-2023, her pandemic responses vastly diverged from the federal government, which had barely restricted travel in favor of maintaining economic activities, pushing for aggressive testing and contact tracing campaigns, mandating face coverings on public transportation and setting up testing kiosks, according to The New York Times.
On security, Obrador had entrusted the military to deal with rising levels of violence. This resulted in a continued rise in the number of disappearances and homicides, reaching 164,000, making his term the most violent on record, despite the 10% decrease in the homicide rate in 2022, Mexico News Daily reported.
Furthermore, residents “are at risk of falling victim to heavy-handed tactics,” and “cases of civilian deaths at the hands of the army almost never go to trial,” The New York Times reported.
In contrast, according to The New York Times, Sheinbaum improved police training, increased their salaries and invested in intelligence; as a result, theft and other criminal activities in Mexico City have decreased by approximately 60%.
On the other side, Gálvez has characterized herself largely as a fierce critic of Obrador and his policies, PBS reported. In an interview with Expansión Política, the Indigenous businesswoman expressed opposition to his security policy of allowing the army on the streets and instead opted to reduce military power and create a national investigative police force. She has also promoted other policies, including establishing a state-owned renewable energy company called Energías Mexicanas, or Emex, Mexico News Daily reported.
In addressing the economy, both candidates emphasized nearshoring — where firms relocate to Mexico to access the U.S. market — as an opportunity for growth. With rising geopolitical tensions between the United States and China, and the Biden administration’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, companies are increasingly looking toward Mexico, which has low costs and stable trading relationships with the United States, The New York Times reported.
Sheinbaum emphasized that nearshoring and energy transition will be crucial in attracting national and foreign investments to the country, promoting sustainability and generating more job opportunities, Mexico Business News reported. Similarly, according to BNN Bloomberg, Gálvez had characterized the phenomenon “as a vehicle to promote upward social mobility” and said that “the next government should ‘immediately’ focus on several key things to promote it.”
“At this point, it seems that [all] three presidential candidates lean towards the left, so it seems there is no place for the radical right,” Anderson said. “The last elections Mexicans voted for an outsider, but [one] on the left: Andre Manuel Lopez Obrador. His popularity has remained high so it seems that AMLO has prevented the emergence of an outsider on the right for the time being.”
According to Anderson, “Mexico would not be the only one governed by the left. The next president, likely Claudia Sheinbaum, will find allies in presidents Petro in Colombia, Lula in Brazil, and Boric in Chile.”
Anderson told Mount Holyoke News that Mexico is breaking the pattern of its incumbent president “always losing.”
“[It] was as a backlash against previous right-wing administrations. Since the trend seems to be that most of the time the incumbent loses, whether the presidency goes to the right or the left depends on who was there before,” Anderson said.