What to Know About Mexico's Historic Election This Weekend (and How to Vote From the US)

On Sunday, millions of Mexican voters will head to the polls to elect the country’s next president.

In this election, two female candidates are leading the polls — something never seen before in the history of Mexico. And whoever wins out of the two will become the first female president to lead the nation of 126 million people with one of the biggest economies in the world.

• Jump to: Are you a Mexican citizen in the Bay Area and want to vote in this election? You may still be able to

Poll after poll show Claudia Sheinbaum, former Mayor of Mexico City, at least 20 points ahead of her closest rival, Xóchitl Gálvez. Sheinbaum represents the left-leaning MORENA party which has been in power since 2018, when outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (who is also known as “AMLO”) won the presidency.

Gálvez, on the other hand, leads a coalition of three parties that have historically been bitter rivals but have come together to oppose MORENA — a party that has existed for less than 15 years but under AMLO’s leadership has amassed an incredible amount of power in all branches of government.

Whether it’s Sheinbaum or Gálvez — or long-shot third-party candidate Jorge Álvarez Máynez who’s polling at 10% — whoever voters elect to succeed AMLO will face monumental challenges. The country has experienced strong economic growth in recent years but climate change and economic inequality threaten that progress.

“What happens in Mexico is of enormous importance to the United States — and nowhere is that more important than in California,” said Harley Shaiken, professor emeritus at UC Berkeley, who previously led the university’s Center for Latin American Studies.

Election officials will announce the presidential winner on Sunday night, sometime between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. PST. Ahead of the big announcement, we’ve brought together the big Mexican election stories to watch out for this weekend.

Could Sheinbaum match her mentor AMLO?

In politics, nothing is ever certain. But the general consensus is that Sheinbaum’s sizable and consistent lead in every major poll for the past two years now makes this her race to lose.

Sheinbaum, however, does not have the same appeal as her mentor AMLO, who is by far the more popular of the two politicians. In 2018, AMLO swept into power with 54% of the vote in a four-way race — a feat not seen since the 1980s, when the Institutional Revolutionary Party (or PRI in Spanish) held almost absolute control over Mexican politics.

“Claudia Sheinbaum is underrated by many,” said Shaiken. “She governed Mexico City for five years under very difficult circumstances and has some impressive things to show for that in the area of policing, renewable energy and community development.”

One frequent criticism the opposition has leveled at Sheinbaum is that she’s heavily influenced by AMLO, and that a Sheinbaum presidency would in fact just be a second AMLO term. But Shaiken doesn’t buy that.

“Has she been close to López Obrador? Positively … but she’s her own person,” he added. “One area where I think we will see some very different things is in the environment,” said Shaiken, noting that Sheinbaum has a PhD in energy engineering and “has been very committed to doing things on solar.”

Whether Sheinbaum can match — or potentially exceed — AMLO’s electoral success could ultimately show whether she can wield as much political influence as her mentor.

What’s the role of Mexicans abroad in this election?

More than 12 million Mexicans live outside Mexico — and 97% live in the United States. For months, Mexican consulates across the U.S. have been promoting the different ways Mexicans living abroad can vote in this year’s presidential contest.

In 2018, roughly 98,000 Mexicans abroad voted in that year’s election — an extremely tiny fraction of the eligible population. But this year, Mexican officials have invested more time and resources to engage the diaspora with the voting process, said María Antonieta Mejía, reporter with Univision 14 Bay Area.

Mejía has covered many Mexican elections, both from Mexico and the U.S., and this year she’s specifically been following efforts by consulates locally to inform the Mexican community in the Bay Area.

“Both the San Francisco and San José consulates have been very open in talking to folks who want to get their INE cards,” she said, pointing at multiple workshops held on Saturdays where Mexican nationals could register for an INE card without needing an appointment.

As part of her reporting, Mejía spoke to dozens of Mexican families now living in the Bay Area about their attitudes to the election. Those who told her they weren’t planning to vote cited reasons like not having their INE voter card in time, or that it wasn’t a priority “because they have been living here for so long.”

But Mejía also met Mexican nationals who were very engaged with the electoral process — and still felt heavily invested in the country’s politics.

For one thing, “many are sending remittances back, others still have a lot of family in their hometowns,” she said. Millions of Mexicans working in the U.S. frequently send some of their wages back to their families. Last year, Mexicans abroad sent back a total of $63.3 billion, making remittances one of the biggest contributors to Mexico’s GDP — a testament to the outsize role the diaspora plays in the country’s economy.

As for party support, “both MORENA and its partisans have — to my knowledge — been the most active here,” she said, and “it’s been difficult to find any type of political activity at their level organized by the opposition parties.”

When AMLO visited San Francisco last November during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, a Bay Area group of very energetic fans of the Mexican president — who call themselves “AMLOvers” — quickly organized a rally outside the APEC security zone to express their loyalty.

She estimates that in the Bay Area, the number of Mexican nationals who vote on Sunday will be in the hundreds. “When we talk about numbers, this may not seem big,” she said. “But this moment is important, because it opens the door to more people participating in the electoral process in the future.”

How much more can AMLO’s party win?

Besides the presidency, more than 20,000 congressional and local positions are up for grabs in Sunday’s Mexican elections. MORENA controls both chambers of Congress and keeping that majority is essential for Sheinbaum to follow through on campaign promises, including a constitutional amendment guaranteeing equality between men and women and having Supreme Court justices picked by popular vote.

Also on the table on Election Day is the head of government for Mexico City and the governor’s seat in eight states: Jalisco, Veracruz, Puebla, Chiapas, Guanajuato, Morelos, Tabasco and Yucatán.

MORENA and its allies already hold power in Veracruz, Puebla, Chiapas, Morelos and Tabasco but are looking to win over the remaining three. If they do so, that would deal a significant blow to the opposition, as each of these states hold significant economic and symbolic power.

Jalisco, an economic powerhouse, is currently governed by the center-left Citizen’s Movement Party and their candidate is hanging onto a slim advantage over MORENA in state polls. The conservative Party for National Action (or PAN in Spanish), which has been the loudest voice of opposition against AMLO, holds Guanajuato and Yucatán — and has invested millions of pesos in keeping these two states in their roster.

If MORENA manages to pull off these wins, they will control 26 out of 32 states, something only the PRI managed to do when it held almost absolute power over Mexico for more than six decades.

If the opposition doesn’t beat MORENA, what then?

In this race, Xóchitl Gálvez may be in the trickiest position.

She represents a coalition made up of Mexico’s three historic parties: The right-leaning PAN, the moderate PRI and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (or PRD in Spanish) on the left. For decades, these parties have been at odds with each other — but MORENA’s rapid growth forced the three to put ideological differences aside and stick together to have a shot at the presidency.

But all three parties are very unpopular among voters. And rather than galvanize their bases, this union has frequently highlighted the ideological gulfs between each of the coalition parties. Take the issue of abortion, for example. As access to abortion expands in Mexico, the PAN remains firmly opposed to abortion while the PRD supports it.

When Gálvez was asked by an abortion rights activist about her stance on abortion last September, she replied that as a coalition candidate, she represents multiple viewpoints and in turn, must represent each different viewpoint.

Her team has responded to these contradictions by instead positioning Gálvez as first and foremost the candidate for those frustrated with AMLO and MORENA. But this message hasn’t yet convinced voters: Gálvez has consistently polled somewhere between the high 20s and low 30s, a long way from Sheinbaum.

The third candidate, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, of the Citizens’ Movement Party, has polled even lower, sticking to the low 10s. He’s employed a social media-heavy strategy in order to court youth votes and has targeted MORENA’s left-leaning flank by promoting policies AMLO hasn’t yet taken on, such as establishing a progressive tax scheme. Support for Álvarez Máynez still remains largely concentrated in his party’s strongholds of Jalisco and Nuevo León.

If election results match the polls and Gálvez loses by a big margin, that could spell the end of her coalition. “I think we will definitely see soul-searching,” said Shaiken of such a potential loss at the ballot box. “Both the Citizens’ Movement and the coalition that Gálvez leads are looking towards the future. They know the die is cast for this Sunday.”

“So they’re going to see whether they meet expectations — or do they exceed them? That could be an important difference as to where they go,” predicted Shaiken.

What could this election spell for AMLO’s legacy?

Due to constitutional rules, AMLO cannot run for reelection. But the outgoing president has transformed the political landscape of Mexico since he first entered the national spotlight back in 2000, when he was elected mayor of Mexico City.

During his three presidential runs (in 2006, 2012 and his successful 2018 campaign), AMLO crisscrossed the country building a massive network of fervent supporters. By railing against the political and economic elite, he won the votes of millions of Mexicans living in poverty, who he frequently refers to as “el pueblo bueno y sabio” — “the good and wise working people.”

As president, AMLO has created dozens of social welfare programs that directly benefit the country’s elderly and poorest families. His government has also poured billions of dollars in infrastructure projects all over Mexico, notably in states that historically have seen little investment.

And while polls show that a majority of Mexicans still support AMLO, others have become frustrated with his Jupiterian style of governing.

AMLO’s critics — be they opposition politicians, journalists or community organizers — have often found themselves quickly and publicly discredited by the president in his morning press briefings. He shrugs off criticism that homicides across Mexico have continued to increase during his term — “I have other data,” he says — despite these numbers coming from his own government’s agencies. And many former allies have left MORENA in response to AMLO’s close relationship with the military, an institution accused of violence and civil rights violations against journalists and civilians during the country’s war against drug cartels.

“There have been concerns from international groups, including the United States, about Mexico sliding away from democratic practice in certain areas,” Shaiken said. “That’s going to be a challenge that Claudia Sheinbaum will face if she actually becomes president.”

AMLO has repeatedly said that once his term ends, he will completely exit the public sphere and retire to his ranch called “La Chingada” in the southwest state of Chiapas. But it’s nonetheless difficult to imagine this outsized personality that has dominated Mexican politics for decades will fully disappear from the halls of power.

I’m a Mexican national — can I still vote in this election?

This year, the National Electoral Institute (or INE in Spanish) provided Mexicans abroad with three different ways to vote:

Voting by mail: This option has been available for multiple election cycles. Eligible Mexican citizens needed to register with the INE weeks in advance for this option. If you chose this voting method, you should have already received your ballot by mail. INE officials recommend you complete it and mail it back as soon as you can so it arrives in Mexico before June 2.

Voting electronically: Eligible voters should have registered for this option by May 3. If you chose this voting method, you should have received an email from the INE with instructions on how to access the voting portal. You have till 5 p.m. PST on June 2 to complete your electronic ballot.

Voting on the day of the election at your nearest consulate: If you didn’t register for the other two options and still want to vote in this year’s presidential election, this is now your only available option.

On June 2, go to the consulate that is nearest to you and let officials know that you are there to vote in the election (see the locations of participating consulates and available voting times.)

Note: You will need to have a valid INE voter card to access a voting booth. If you do not have an INE card, you will not be able to vote (American state IDs or other identification will not be accepted.)

This story includes reporting by The Associated Press.