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A former climate scientist is about to become the first female president of the Mexicothe second largest economy in Latin America, with a landslide victory, according to exit polls.
Claudia Scheinbaum, the 61-year-old former mayor of Mexico City and candidate for the Morena party, is expected to receive between 55% and 63% of the vote.
Mario Delgado, the head of Morena, told supporters in Mexico City that Sheinbaum had won by a “very large” margin, hours before a quick count by Mexico’s electoral commission produced a winner.
A big win for Sheinbaum would be in line with polls throughout the campaign that have given her a significant lead.
Besides the presidency, more than 20,000 positions are up for grabs in Mexico’s biggest election. The poll was also the most brutal in modern history, with more than 30 candidates killed and hundreds more dropped as criminal gangs battle to install friendly leaders.
On Sunday, two people were killed in polling stations in the state of Puebla.
Sheinbaum capitalized on the support for his populist predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obradorwho founded Morena in 2014 and first broke the power of traditional parties to become president with his landslide victory in 2018.
She promised to continue his policies, including cash transfers to the elderly and single mothers, as well as flagship infrastructure projects in historically poor regions, but also a massively expanded role for the military in areas normally reserved for civil society, such as homeland security.
Scheinbaum’s closest rival, Xóchitl Gálvez of the opposition coalition, is also prematurely claiming victory – despite being 20 to 30 percentage points behind Sheinbaum in the exit polls.
An estimated 100 million people were registered to vote on Sunday and huge queues formed at polling stations in the sweltering heat.
At a Mexico City station between the wealthy Roma neighborhood and working-class doctors, voters were split on Morena’s virtues, leaning out of line to answer discreetly.
Patricia Castro, a woman from Sinaloa state, shrugged at the mention of Scheinbaum and Galvez, but not López Obrador. “He’s the worst,” Castro said. “The worst.”
Castro voted for the conservative PAN party, which is part of the opposition coalition, saying: “PAN has done more [when it was in power].”
Further down the line, Caro Guzman, a middle-aged janitor, emphasized the importance of Morena’s social programs. “With Morena, my sister received money every month to take care of our mother,” Guzman said. “It really helped us when she was sick.”
Guzman added that she trusted Sheinbaum to support Morena’s social programs.
Sam Castillo, a 25-year-old dancer who lives between Oaxaca state and Mexico City, said he hopes Scheinbaum will be stronger in foreign relations than López Obrador.
As he waited to vote at a polling station in the Florida neighborhood in southern Mexico City, he said he felt better with the leftist Morena in power as part of the LGBTQ+ community. “What we’ve seen with gender legislation, with marriage equality, to me it’s about party,” Castillo said.
The new president will face tense negotiations with the United States over huge flows of US-bound migrants crossing Mexico and security cooperation on drug trafficking as the US fentanyl epidemic rages.
Mexican officials expect these negotiations to be more difficult if Donald Trump wins the US presidency in November. Trump, the first US president to be convicted of a crime, has vowed to impose 100% tariffs on Chinese cars made in Mexico and said he would mobilize special forces to fight cartels.
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