The president of the National Electoral Institute (INE), Guadalupe Taddei, announced “quick count” results for the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate late Sunday.

For each party, the INE calculated a range for the number of seats they could win in each house of Congress. The ranges are based on the percentage of votes each party received.

Morena and its allies, the Labor Party (PT) and the Ecological Green Party of Mexico (PVEM), will easily win more than 300 seats in the 500-seat Chamber of Deputies, according to the quick count. The wins will give them a supermajority in the lower house of Congress.

If the three parties win the upper end of their predicted range of Senate seats, they will also achieve a two-thirds majority in the upper house. Final results for the congressional elections are due later this week.

Morena and its allies currently have a simple majority in both houses of Congress.

A supermajority in both houses would allow the coalition led by Morena to approve constitutional reform proposals without the support of opposition parties. That would give immense power to president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, who won the presidential election in a landslide.

She has expressed support for a package of constitutional reform proposals President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) submitted to Congress earlier this year.

More on those proposals — and what a Morena supermajority would mean for the current president and his successor — later.

The Chamber of Deputies

The INE quick count results show that Morena, the PT and the PVEM will win between 346 and 380 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Such a result would give the alliance an unexpected supermajority.

Lawmakers are elected to the lower house both directly and according to a proportional representation system.

The breakdown of the predicted 346-380 seat range is as follows:

• Morena is expected to win between 41.2% and 42.8% of the vote, giving the party a total of 233-251 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.
• PT is expected to win between 5.3% and 6.1% of the vote, giving the party a total of 46-52 seats.
• PVEM is expected to win between 8.1% and 9.1% of the vote, giving the party a total of 67-77 seats.

The three-party opposition alliance made up of the National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) will win between 94 and 129 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, according to the quick count.

The breakdown of that range is as follows:

• PAN could win between 17.3% and 18.7% of the vote, giving the party a total of 64-80 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.
• PRI could win between 11.1% and 11.9% of the vote, giving the party a total of 30-41 seats.
• PRD could win between 2.4% and 3.1% of the vote, giving the party a total of 0-8 seats.

Citizens Movement (MC) is expected to win between 11.1% and 12% of the vote, giving the party a total of 23-32 seats.

Independent candidates are expected to win between 0% and 0.9% of the vote. Such candidates could fail to win any seats in the lower house, or they could get a maximum of two, according to the INE quick count.

The Senate

The quick count results show that Morena, the PT and the PVEM will win between 76 and 88 seats in the Senate. To reach a two-thirds majority, they will need to win a minimum of 86 seats. As is the case with the lower house, Senate seats are allocated directly and according to a proportional representation system.

The breakdown of the predicted 76-88 seat range is as follows:

• Morena could win between 41.9% and 44% of the vote, giving the party a total of 57-60 seats in the Senate.
• PT could win between 5.3% and 6.5% of the vote, giving the party a total of 9-13 seats.
• PVEM could win between 8.6% and 9.8% of the vote, giving the party a total of 10-15 seats.

The PAN-PRI-PRD alliance is likely to win between 34 and 43 seats in the Senate.

The breakdown of that range is as follows:

• PAN could win between 15.8% and 17.9% of the vote, giving the party a total of 19-22 seats in the Senate.
• PRI could win between 10.7% and 12.3% of the vote, giving the party a total of 15-18 seats.
• PRD could win between 2 and 2.7% of the vote, giving the party a total of 0-3 seats.

MC could win between 10.9% and 12% of the vote, giving the party a total of 4-8 Senate seats.

What would a Morena supermajority in Congress mean for the current and future president?

If Morena and its allies end up securing a two-thirds majority in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Mexican Senate, López Obrador will have a one-month window of opportunity to push constitutional changes through Congress. That is because the lawmakers elected on Sunday will assume their positions on Sept. 1 and the president will leave office on Oct. 1.

AMLO, as noted earlier, submitted a package of constitutional reform proposals to Congress in February. Among his proposals are ones to:

• Guarantee that annual minimum salary increases outpace inflation.
• Overhaul the pension system so that retired workers receive pensions equivalent to 100% of their final salaries.
• Allow citizens to directly elect Supreme Court justices and other judges.
• Eliminate numerous autonomous government agencies.
• Reduce the number of federal lawmakers and the amount of money spent on elections and funding political parties.
• Incorporate the National Guard into the military.
• Ban fracking and genetically modified corn — the latter of which is a source of conflict with the United States.

Opposition parties vehemently oppose many of López Obrador’s proposals, especially ones they regard as attacks on Mexico’s democratic system and institutions.

There is also significant opposition to his plan to reincorporate the National Guard into the military. AMLO put the security force under the control of the Defense Ministry in 2022, but the Supreme Court ruled last year that that move was unconstitutional.

Even if Morena and its allies win a two-thirds majority in both the lower and upper houses of Mexico’s Congress, it is unlikely that López Obrador would be able to get all 20 of his constitutional reform proposals approved in the space of a single month.

That’s where Sheinbaum comes in.

She backs the president’s proposals and campaigned on her commitment to build on AMLO’s so-called “fourth transformation.” If Morena’s coalition has a supermajority in both houses of Congress, there will be ample time to pass the proposals.

Some analysts believe López Obrador sent the constitutional proposals to Congress in order to set the agenda for his successor. However, AMLO asserted on Monday that he didn’t want to “impose anything” on his successor.

“We have to come to an agreement to look at these [reform] initiatives with Claudia and other things,” he said.

A Morena supermajority in both houses would give enormous power to Sheinbaum, who will become Mexico’s first ever female president on Oct. 1.

Given her comprehensive victory over opposition bloc candidate Xóchitl Gálvez, she could rightfully argue that she has a strong mandate to make the constitutional changes proposed by López Obrador, as well as other reforms she puts forward herself.

Mexico News Daily 

The post Mexico election results: Morena coalition wins large majorities in Congress appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Sheinbaum, 61, is the first woman to win the Mexican presidency, and was previously the first woman to be mayor of Mexico City.

Who is Sheinbaum? How did this granddaughter of immigrants, a scientist and academic, arrive at this momentous moment in Mexican history? And what can we expect from her as president?

Growing up in a political family

Claudia was born into a secular Jewish family in Mexico City in 1962, the second of three children. Carlos Sheinbaum Yoselevitz, a chemical engineer, and Annie Pardo Cemo, a molecular biologist, were both second-generation Mexicans whose parents had fled Nazi persecution in eastern Europe.

On her father’s side, Claudia’s grandparents had emigrated to Mexico from Lithuania in the and on her mother’s side, from Bulgaria. In a 2018 NPR profile, Claudia says she celebrated Jewish holidays at her grandparents’ but “her home life was secular.”

The Sheinbaum Pardo family may not have been religious, but they were definitely political. Both of Claudia’s parents participated in the student movements of the 1960s and her father was a member of the Mexican Communist Party.

Silvia Torre, a friend of Annie Pardo, said on the Política Deja Vu podcast that the children grew up in “an atmosphere of political criticism” and that the Sheinbaum family sometimes took their youngsters to visit political prisoners at the notorious Lecumberri prison on the weekends.

Claudia was only six years old when Mexican armed forces massacred students in Tlatelolco in October 1968, but the tragedy made an indelible impression on her psyche — and that of the nation. At the third presidential debate, Claudia said “we are the children and grandchildren of 1968,” which was a crucible for the left in modern Mexico, the beginning of state repression and the “dirty war” that left murders, torture and disappearances in its wake. 

Claudia studied ballet for 13 years, into her second year of studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), but ended up choosing physics for her degree, which her brother also studied. She was an active participant in political and social causes, forming part of the larger student movement of the time, which saw its biggest moment in 1986 with the formation of the Consejo Estudiantil Universitario (CEU).

The CEU reacted strongly in response to a reform package presented by UNAM’s dean, Jorge Carpizo, that would have raised tuition and implemented more restrictions on admissions. “Our argument was that education is not a commodity, it’s a right,” said Claudia in an interview for a 2023 documentary made by her son, Rodrigo Imaz. 

“She was someone who brought order to the endless debates, especially when it was time to make important decisions, like whether to go on strike,” said sociologist and friend of Claudia, Arturo Chávez, in a profile published in the newspaper El País. “She impressed the rest of us with her ability to be systematic and say, ‘This is the way to go.’”

Pursuing an academic career and motherhood

The CEU strike was successful, leading to the defeat of the “Plan Carpizo.” This movement became the nucleus of a new political party, the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), whose candidate, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, lost to Carlos Salinas in the fractious 1988 presidential election. 

Claudia married Carlos Imaz, a fellow student and activist, in 1987 and gave birth to her daughter Mariana the following year. She stayed involved in the PRD but was mostly working on her academic career at this time while raising Mariana and Rodrigo, her husband’s young son from a previous marriage.

She completed her masters in energy engineering at UNAM and went with her family to UC Berkeley for her doctorate. When she returned to Mexico four years later, she joined the faculty of UNAM’s Institute of Engineering.

Claudia Sheinbaum’s first foray into government

In 2000, when Andrés Manuel López Obrador became the mayor of Mexico City on the PRD ticket, he started looking for people with technical expertise — and political loyalty — to join his government. He asked Claudia to be Environment Minister and to work on pollution problems in the city.

Claudia would be given another mission as part of AMLO’s team: coordinate construction of the second level (“el segundo piso”) of the massive periférico or ring road that hugs Mexico City. The project, completed in 2005, was one of the most significant roadworks in Mexico City in decades, designed to alleviate congestion that was causing a concentration of emissions.

It wasn’t without controversy, however, with critics alleging a lack of transparency throughout the project and excessive costs. The term “el segundo piso” would become a slogan during Claudia’s 2024 presidential campaign, alluding to her promise to build the “second story” of AMLO’s “cuarta transformación,” or fourth transformation of Mexico.

It was during this time that Claudia experienced her first media scandal: A video surfaced in 2004 of her husband, who served in the upper echelons of the PRD, receiving cash from an Argentinian businessman. This was part of a series of videos showing similar circumstances involving people close to López Obrador, alleged to be a conspiracy by AMLO’s political rivals. Imaz accepted responsibility and said the money was for PRD campaigns. He was convicted of electoral crimes but later exonerated for lack of evidence. Imaz resigned and didn’t return to an active political life. He and Sheinbaum separated in 2016.

Sheinbaum continued by AMLO’s side when he ran for president for the first time in 2006. She became his campaign spokesperson after his controversial and very narrow loss to PAN candidate Felipe Calderón, and was instrumental in the investigation of the electoral fraud that AMLO and his team claimed had resulted in his defeat.

In 2007, Claudia contributed to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which won a Nobel Peace Prize that same year. In the aftermath of López Obrador’s second loss representing the PRD in the 2012 presidential election, Claudia was instrumental in the foundation of the new political party AMLO decided to form. Claudia participated in the brigades and assemblies that went door to door raising awareness about their new party, named the National Regeneration Movement (Morena). 

From Tlalpan to jefa de gobierno

In 2015, Claudia represented Morena in the race for mayor of the borough of Tlalpan in Mexico CIty and won. Her time in office was marked by the 2017 Puebla earthquake, and particularly the collapse of the private Enrique Rébsamen school which killed 19 children and seven adults. Her government received criticism for allowing the school to continue to operate despite apparent infringement of zoning regulations.

In 2018, Claudia decided to run for mayor of Mexico City on the Morena ticket and won with 47% of the vote, achieving her first historical milestone as the first woman elected to govern the megalopolis. “Don’t think because you see this skinny scientist up here that we won’t be strong enough to take on the subject of crime fighting,” Claudia was quoted as saying in a speech shortly after her win.

While Claudia’s term included major public transportation projects, a massive solar panel installation, digitalization of city bureaucracy, a new public school scholarship program and reductions in crime, two dark events marked her tenure: the COVID-19 pandemic, and the collapse of the elevated Line 12 of the Metro.

While Mexico City suffered a large number of deaths from COVID-19, particularly during the second wave in 2021, Claudia’s management was overall considered prudent and effective and often contrasted with federal public health policies. The city’s vaccination campaign got off to a difficult start in late 2020, suffering from a scattered layout and shortages of vaccines, so Claudia pivoted. Instead of installing many small vaccination sites spread out over the city, she directed the establishment of six mega vaccination centers, which proved to be far more effective. In fact, the federal government subsequently applied the same strategy nationwide.

On May 3, 2021, an elevated section of Line 12 of the Metro collapsed, killing 26 people and injuring around 100. Claudia’s government initiated an investigation (eventually 10 people were arrested and charged, though they have not been tried) and brought in a Norwegian firm to determine the causes of the accident. The firm faulted both flaws in the line’s construction (beginning in 2008) and poor maintenance (particularly after the 2017 earthquake), spreading responsibility for the tragedy across several mayoral terms and mayors. Claudia rejected the report as “poorly executed” and “biased.” In January, interim mayor Martí Batres reopened the repaired Line 12.

In discussing her time in office as mayor and her relationship with AMLO, Claudia reflected in a recent interview, “I hope that the people of Mexico feel represented by me, that’s the objective. … President López Obrador is a very respectful man. He never spoke to me by telephone when I was mayor to tell me [what to do], to give me instructions. Never,” she said.

Running for president

Claudia resigned from her position as mayor in June 2023 to compete for the presidential candidacy of Morena. Her opponents were all men, some who had come up in the CEU movement of 1986 (Morena party president Mario Delgado, Senator Ricardo Monreal), and others who had significant experience in government (Marcelo Ebrard, former foreign affairs minister and mayor of Mexico City). Claudia won the party’s nomination in September, with an average of 39.4% support across five polls, and managed to avoid internal ruptures within Morena despite Ebrard’s initial rejection of her victory.

“As an adversary, she is a generous woman. I never felt aggression or hostility from her,” said Ricardo Monreal. “…And in the end, no one left [the party], no one deserted, no one went over to the opposition.”

While on the campaign trail, Claudia was often described as disciplined, never going “off-script” from her role as the leader of AMLO’s movement. Polls consistently put her ahead of her closest rival, Xóchitl Gálvez of the PAN-PRI-PRD coalition, but based on election results, even the polls underestimated her popular support with voters.

Last year was also a busy one in Claudia’s personal life. She became a grandmother in May 2023 when her son Rodrigo’s child, Pablo, was born. And she tied the knot with Jesús Tarriba Unger, a fellow physicist and risk analyst at the Bank of Mexico who she knew from college years. They reconnected in 2016, and were married in a small civil ceremony in November in Mexico City.

What to expect of Claudia as president

Claudia is often described as serious, direct and highly demanding of her team. 

“She feels like she has to get her hands dirty … it was very inspiring to see her do the same [tasks] as everyone else,” said her collaborator Pepe Merino in El País, referring to her responding personally to calls to Mexico City’s COVID-19 hotline during the pandemic. “She has a commitment and ethical and moral clarity, leaving you with no doubts or ambivalence.”

“She has a certain maternal aspect, in a sense that she is caring, but it’s clear that she is the one who makes decisions … She navigates these two things gracefully, like a dancer,” says academic Renata Turrent, a member of her campaign team.

Journalist and biographer Jorge Zepeda Patterson says Claudia means “fewer microphones and more Excel” for the 4T movement. “She is a mix of scientific thinking with a personality of doing things well, of meeting goals and meeting the level of responsibility that is demanded, and that is her drive for getting up every day, not like López Obrador’s, which is how he will be seen by history.”

When asked in a recent interview by Fernanda Caso (who described her as “friendly, but reserved”) how she would like to be remembered if she became president, Claudia said: “I want to be remembered as a good president, not just the first woman to be president…to leave the country even better than we found it … and to make even more progress against poverty and [Mexico’s] tremendous inequalities.”

To read more about Claudia’s platform and policy proposals, you can check out the following Mexico News Daily stories:

Claudia Sheinbaum talks security, water and more in El Financiero interview

Claudia Sheinbaum pledges to ‘accelerate’ transition to renewable energy if elected

What would Claudia Sheinbaum do as president?

Sheinbaum: Nearshoring will drive growth in next presidential term

Written by chief news editor Kate Bohné (kate.bohne@mexiconewsdaily.com). You can read more of her work on her Substack, The Mexpatriate.

The post Who is Claudia Sheinbaum? A profile on Mexico’s first woman president appeared first on Mexico News Daily

The party founded by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador also won the Mexico City mayoral race, with Clara Brugada prevailing over PAN-PRI-PRD candidate Santiago Taboada.

Candidates backed by Morena and its allies won the gubernatorial contests in Chiapas, Morelos, Puebla, Tabasco, Veracruz and Yucatán.

In Guanajuato, the candidate for the PAN-PRI-PRD alliance won, while a Citizens Movement (MC) party candidate looked set to retain the governorship of Jalisco for that party.

When the new governors and Mexico City mayor take office, Morena and its allies, the Labor Party (PT) and the Ecological Green Party of Mexico (PVEM), will govern 24 of Mexico’s 32 federal entities.

Registered as a political party just 10 years ago, Morena, with Sunday’s results, further entrenches itself as the dominant political force in Mexico.

The party — whose name is an acronym of Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (National Regeneration Movement), but also means brown-skinned woman — also won strong majorities in both houses of federal Congress, according to preliminary results, as well as numerous mayoral contests in municipal elections held across the country.

Early results show big win for Morena in Chiapas 

Eduardo Ramírez Aguilar, the Morena-PT-PVEM candidate in Chiapas, won a resounding victory in the southern state, which is currently governed by Morena.

Preliminary results updated at midday Monday showed he he attracted 79.1% of the vote.

Olga Luz Espinosa, candidate for the National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), finished in a distant second place with just under 12% of the vote.

Ramírez, a former federal senator, said on the social platform X that he was “very grateful” to citizens who “bet on the the continuity of the transformation,” a reference to the so-called “fourth transformation” initiated by López Obrador and the Morena party.

“There are more of us who want to transform our state, and this was reflected at the ballot box,” he wrote.

PAN-PRI-PRD alliance prevails in Guanajuato

Libia García Muñoz Ledo won the governorship of Guanajuato for the PAN, PRI and the PRD. She will become the state’s first ever female governor.

The 40-year-old candidate won around 51% of the vote, according to preliminary results, while the Morena-PT-PVEM aspirant, Alma Alcaraz Hernández, had the support of about 41%.

García’s victory ensures the continuation of National Action Party rule in Guanajuato, which has been a PAN stronghold for decades.

“We won!” the candidate wrote on X.

“For the first time a woman will be at the front of the governor of Guanajuato,” García said.

“… Thank you for trusting in the best project for our people.”

MC likely to retain Jalisco

Among Mexico’s eight gubernatorial elections, Jalisco saw the closest contest on Sunday. Preliminary results showed MC candidate Pablo Lemus with almost 41% of the vote, while Morena-PT-PVEM hopeful Claudia Delgadillo had 38.5% support.

More than 40% of votes had still not been counted at midday.

Jalisco is currently governed by MC governor Enrique Alfaro Ramírez.

Lemus, a former mayor of Guadalajara, has claimed victory, but as of early Monday afternoon, Delgadillo had not conceded defeat. She said on X that she wouldn’t accept the announcement of a winner until all the votes have been counted.

Morena maintains power in Morelos

Margarita González Saravia, candidate for Morena and its allies, won convincingly in Morelos, according to preliminary results. She will become the state’s first female governor.

The former head of Mexico’s National Lottery attracted about 48% of the vote, well ahead of PAN-PRI-PRD candidate Lucía Meza Guzmán on just over 30%.

Former soccer star Cuauhtémoc Blanco governed Morelos until April, when he stepped down to stand as a candidate for the federal Chamber of Deputies.

Morena is in office in the state and with González’s victory will rule for another six years.

“The people of Morelos triumphed,” the Morena candidate wrote on X above “quick count” results that showed she was the clear winner.

Early results show Morena holding on to Puebla 

Morena-PT-PVEM candidate Alejandro Armenta Mier was a clear victor in Puebla’s gubernatorial election with around 59% of the vote, according to preliminary results.

PAN-PRI-PRD candidate Eduardo Rivera Pérez was well behind with around 33% support.

Armenta will succeed current Morena governor Sergio Salómon Cespedes.

“The only thing that moves us is love for Puebla,” Armenta wrote on X.

“Thank you because with the participation of the poblanos [residents of Puebla], we will continue making history with Dr. Claudia Sheinbaum,” the winning candidate added.

Morena secures titanic triumph in Tabasco election

Javier May Rodríguez, a former federal welfare minister and ex-head of the National Tourism Promotion Fund, scored a crushing victory for Morena and its allies in Tabasco, the home state of President López Obrador.

May attracted over 80% of the vote, leaving his two rivals with single-digit support.

He will replace current Morena governor Carlos Merino Campos later this year.

“This historic triumph is for all the people of Tabasco, the same people who welcomed us with happiness and open arms on every walk, at every event and in every meeting,” May wrote on X.

“Thank you for believing in a better Tabasco for everyone!”

Veracruz vaults Morena candidate into the state’s top job

Former federal energy minister Rocío Nahle won the governorship of Veracruz for the alliance headed up by Morena. She will become the state’s first female governor.

Nahle attracted more than 58% of the vote, according to preliminary results, well ahead of the PAN-PRI-PRD candidate José Francisco Yunes on 32%.

She will head up the second Morena government in Veracruz when she succeeds current Governor Cuitláhuac García later this year.

“In Veracruz we will continue making history,” Nahle wrote on X.

“Democracy and the continuation of the transformation triumphed. Thank you very much!”

Morena wins Yucatán gubernatorial election for the first time

The only upset among the eight gubernatorial races was the triumph of Morena candidate Joaquín Díaz Mena in Yucatán.

Díaz, who was injured in a car accident last Wednesday, attracted around 51% of the vote, according to preliminary results. Morena will thus take office for the first time in Yucatán, which has been governed by both PAN and PRI governments this century.

PAN-PRI candidate Renán Barrera, a former Mérida mayor, attracted support of around 42.5%.

Díaz, who served as the federal government’s “super-delegate” in Yucatán for almost five years before becoming Morena’s gubernatorial candidate, thanked Barrera on X for conceding defeat.

“I thank him very much for his good wishes for the good of our state,” the Morena candidate wrote.

Mexico News Daily 

The post Mexico election results: Morena dominates gubernatorial races appeared first on Mexico News Daily

On Monday morning, President Biden issued a statement from The White House complimenting Sheinbaum on her victory:

“I congratulate Claudia Sheinbaum on her historic election as the first woman President of Mexico. I look forward to working closely with President-elect Sheinbaum in the spirit of partnership and friendship that reflects the enduring bonds between our two countries. I express our commitment to advancing the values and interests of both our nations to the benefit of our peoples,” Biden said.

Biden also congratulated the Mexican public for carrying out “a nationwide successful democratic electoral process.”

Global leaders send best wishes to Mexico’s next president

Earlier Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a statement on social media saluting Sheinbaum’s win. Trudeau praised the United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) free trade agreement as “the envy of the world, and the result of a strong, mutually beneficial relationship,” while proclaiming his desire to strengthen bilateral relations “to create more prosperity for Canadians and Mexicans alike.”

Among the first messages received by the unofficial president-elect (the National Electoral Institute will make it official by June 8) was a social media post from Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez. The post was published at 1:24 a.m. while Sheinbaum was celebrating her historical achievement with a rally in the Zócalo.

Enhorabuena, @Claudiashein, por tu elección.

Por primera vez en su historia, México tendrá a una mujer al frente de la Presidencia.

Seguiremos trabajando para fortalecer las relaciones entre España y México.

— Pedro Sánchez (@sanchezcastejon) June 3, 2024

Sánchez applauded Sheinbaum for becoming Mexico’s first female president and promised to keep working to solidify bilateral relations. Sánchez later posted that he had spoken on the phone with the president-elect.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, also posted a congratulatory message to Sheinbaum on X, emphasizing the “deep historical, economic and cultural ties” between Mexico and the European Union and saying that she looks forward to strengthening relations.

In the wake of a recent diplomatic incident, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron sent his regards as well, posting on X that “the UK and Mexico have been friends for 200 years, working together closely on opportunities and shared challenges.”

Leaders of the Latin American left also joined the chorus. Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro, Bolivia’s Luis Arce, Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, Xiomara Castro of Honduras, Gabriel Boric of Chile, Bernardo Arévalo of Guatemala, Costa Rica’s Rodrigo Chaves Robles and Cuba’s Miguel Díaz-Canel all sent congratulatory messages to Sheinbaum as did Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, Uruguay’s Luis Lacalle and Panama’s Laurentino Cortizo.

Sheinbaum wasn’t the only victor on Sunday, though she was the most prominent. On June 2, Mexico’s electoral authorities oversaw more than 20,000 races at the local, state and federal levels. At the federal level Sheinbaum’s party, Morena and allies appear to have won a supermajority in the lower house of Congress and are likely to win a simple majority (less than two-thirds) in the Senate.

With reports from El Economista, El País and Infobae

The post Joe Biden and other international leaders congratulate Claudia Sheinbaum on her historic win appeared first on Mexico News Daily

The election that pitted former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum against former senator Xóchitl Gálvez marked the first time Mexican nationals could cast an in-person ballot on foreign soil for an election in Mexico. As in past elections, they could also vote by mail or electronically.

Así la fila en París, 9am #EleccionesMéxico2024 #EleccionesMx2024 #votoextranjero pic.twitter.com/hDKi0vNMCl

— Gabriela Cambero (@gabycambero) June 2, 2024

Arturo Castillo, president of the Temporary Voting Commission of Mexicans Living Abroad, shared that 39,590 ballots were received by mail, 135,331 votes were cast online, and 5,755 were cast in person at 23 consulates in the United States, Canada and Europe.

According to Mexico’s National Electoral Institute (INE), there were 258,461 Mexicans abroad who were registered to vote in Sunday’s election, the most in history. That number temporarily shrank when some 40,000 people were removed from the voting rolls in April, although 36,570 were subsequently reinstated.

This year’s 180,676 total votes from outside Mexico easily topped the 2018 presidential election’s 98,854 votes from abroad, including 37,000 that were cast online.

Voting hubs experienced significant congestion, with Madrid and Paris extending voting hours until 2 a.m. to accommodate the high turnout.

Election Update: Mexicans in New York line up to vote at the Consulate there.

It’s expected that more than 5,000 people will vote there today. pic.twitter.com/5pckyBD5dl

— Outbound Mexico (@OutboundMexico) June 2, 2024

In Madrid, where seven polling stations were set up, voters arrived as early as 4 a.m. and some waited up to 15 hours to cast their ballots.

In the United States, long lines were a common sight at consulates in cities such as Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. 

Technical issues with the new electronic voting system further slowed the process, especially for older voters unfamiliar with the technology. Another factor slowing things down was that those who had a valid Mexican voting ID card could vote even if they had not yet registered. 

Ricardo Sánchez, an INE liaison, noted that by midday, only 150 out of 1,000 people in line had managed to vote in Washington, D.C.

In Fresno, long, slow-moving lines and hot weather had people on edge. By Sunday afternoon, there were more than 1,000 people in line, according to the Consulate of Mexico in Fresno, but many were reportedly turned away when the consulate closed its doors at 5 p.m.

“I was here in the morning, and I came back, and the line never ended,” frustrated would-be voter Nayamin Martinez told Fresno TV station KFSN. “About 10 minutes before 5 p.m., they came out and said roughly 600 people have voted but [that] we’re closing.”

Similar scenes played out in San Francisco, Phoenix and Chicago, where the influx of voters caused street closures.

“In some cases,” the INE noted in a statement to the Associated Press, “the large influx of people wishing to vote at the consular headquarters has exceeded expectations.”

“This is sad,” voter Abel Vences told Chicago TV station WLS. The INE “wasn’t ready and was not respectful.”

Despite the challenges, voters in several cities sang traditional Mexican songs, such as “Cielito Lindo,” while waiting in line. In Los Angeles, voters draped in Mexican flags cheered each time a ballot was cast, and street vendors sold food and snacks to those in line.

Claudia Zavala, another member of the Temporary Voting Commission, acknowledged the issues and emphasized the need for future improvements.

With reports from Milenio, La Jornada, N+ and CNN en Español

The post Mexicans living abroad turn out en masse to vote for their first female president appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Brugada, who also represented the Labor Party and the Green Party, attracted over 50% of the vote, more than 10 points clear of PAN-PRI-PRD candidate Santiago Taboada, who had the support of just under 40% of voters.

Salomón Chertorivski of the Citizens Movement party was in a distant third place with about 7% of the vote.

Clara Brugada, a former mayor of the Mexico City borough of Itzapalapa, took to social media to acknowledge her victory.

“Based on the results issued by the electoral authority, the trend is clear: the majority of the people of this city want the transformation to continue,” she said in a post to X in the early hours of Monday.

The “transformation” she was referring to is the so-called “fourth transformation” President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asserts his government is undertaking in Mexico. Claudia Sheinbaum, who won Sunday’s presidential election in a landslide, has pledged to build on that transformation.

With her victory, Brugada will assume one of Mexico’s most powerful political positions — and is already a key ally of the new president.

Previous Mexico City mayors include Sheinbaum, who stepped down a year ago to focus on the presidential election, and López Obrador, who was in office in the capital between 2000 and 2005 before launching the first of his three presidential bids.

Felicidades querida @ClaudiaShein por escribir una página más de la historia y convertirte en la primera Presidenta de México. Estoy segura que continuarás el legado de nuestro gran presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

¡Contigo, llegamos todas!#ClaudiaPresidenta… pic.twitter.com/50vOHEmCUd

— Clara Brugada Molina (@ClaraBrugadaM) June 3, 2024

Sheinbaum won the 2018 Mexico City mayoral election for Morena, ending the long-running rule of the Democractic Revolution Party (PRD) in the capital. López Obrador, former foreign affairs minister Marcelo Ebrard and Senator Miguel Ángel Mancera all represented the PRD when they were mayors of Mexico City earlier this century.

Brugada, who was selected as Morena’s candidate in the capital despite finishing second in the party’s internal selection contest, is perhaps best known for her “utopía” community center projects in Iztapalapa, which provide free athletic, recreation and education opportunities in the disadvantaged borough.

During her campaign, she pledged to establish 100 additional utopías across the capital’s 15 other boroughs if she succeeded in becoming mayor.

One of the key challenges she will face after she is sworn in on Oct. 5 is guaranteeing ongoing water supply for the capital.

Brugada has pledged to create a water-focused ministry in Mexico City, expand the capital’s rainwater harvesting program and establish a new program for the “rehabilitation” of 11 water sources, among other measures.

She has also said she will allocate “billions of pesos” to water projects in the capital, where many residents don’t have running water in their homes and depend on deliveries from trucks known as pipas.

Security and transport will be other key issues for Brugada, 60, who has also served as a federal and Mexico City lawmaker.

Voters in Mexico City also elected deputies to the capital’s Congress on Sunday. Morena and its allies look set to maintain a majority in the 66-seat unicameral legislature.

Mexico News Daily 

The post Morena party candidate Clara Brugada elected mayor of Mexico City appeared first on Mexico News Daily

The peso was trading at under 17 to the US dollar on Sunday but depreciated to as low as 17.7 on Monday morning according to Bloomberg data. In percentage terms, the peso declined around 4%.

At 10 a.m. Mexico City time, the peso had recovered somewhat to trade at 17.58 to the dollar but was back up to 17.69 by 11 a.m.

Gabriela Siller, director of economic analysis at Mexican bank Banco Base, said on X that the peso had depreciated due to “greater risk.”

She wrote that “80% of peso vs dollar transactions are speculative” and that “the risk-reward trade-off” for investors had changed due to the election result.

“With a majority in the Congress, Morena and its allies could change the constitution,” Siller said.

Janneth Quiroz, director of analysis at the Monex financial group, said on X that the peso depreciated due to “nervousness” among investors following the announcement of preliminary election results.

Those results showed that Morena and its allies, the Labor Party and the Ecological Green Party of Mexico, were likely to win a two-thirds majority in the lower house of Congress, and could also achieve a supermajority in the Senate.

A two-thirds majority in both houses would allow Morena and its allies to approve constitutional reform proposals without the support of opposition parties.

That possibility “generated concern” in the market, said Quiroz, who noted that the peso had depreciated to its weakest position since last November.

Sheinbaum’s victory was widely expected as she maintained a commanding lead in the polls throughout the three-month-long campaign period. But Morena and its allies weren’t widely expected to win two-thirds majorities in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.

Buoyed by a large differential between interest rates in Mexico and those in the United States, as well as strong incoming flows of remittances and foreign investment, the peso has performed well against the dollar for an extended period.

In April, the peso reached 16.30 to the dollar, its strongest position in almost nine years.

The low of 17.7 on Monday morning represents a depreciation of around 8% for the peso compared to that level.

Mexico News Daily 

The post Peso depreciates the morning after Mexico’s elections appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Sheinbaum — who campaigned heavily on her commitment to build on the so-called “fourth transformation” of Mexico initiated by the current president — attracted 58-60% of the vote, according to “quick count” results announced by the president of the National Electoral Institute (INE) Guadalupe Taddei late Sunday.

Her main rival, Xóchitl Gálvez of a three-party opposition bloc, was around 30 points behind with 26-28% of the vote.

Jorge Álvarez Máynez, candidate for the Citizens Movement party, attracted about 10% of the vote.

Sheinbaum celebrated her comprehensive victory with an appearance after 1 a.m. Monday in the Zócalo, Mexico City’s central square.

“I feel excited and grateful for the recognition [the Mexican people] have given to the fourth transformation of public life in Mexico,” she said.

Sheinbaum, a former mayor of Mexico City, noted that it was the first time a woman had been elected president of Mexico since the country became independent more than 200 years ago.

Supporters responded with chants of “presidenta, presidenta,” the female form of the Spanish word for president.

Sheinbaum subsequently acknowledged a number of female Mexican trailblazers who preceded her, including independence insurgent Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez.

She also recognized “all the anonymous Mexican women” who have “built the homeland.”

Sheinbaum, 61, will be sworn in as president on Oct. 1 for a six-year term that will end in 2030. She is also the country’s first Jewish head of state.

Tens of millions of Mexicans voted across Mexico and from abroad on Sunday in what were the country’s largest ever elections. As of Monday morning, voter participation nationally was estimated to be 60.1% according to the INE.

The result in the presidential contest was a strong endorsement of the presidency of López Obrador, who took office in 2018 after the scandal-plagued term of the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s Enrique Peña Nieto.

AMLO, as the president is best known, is a polarizing figure in Mexico, but has retained strong support throughout his six-year term. He created Morena around a decade ago and it has since become Mexico’s dominant political force, governing the majority of the country’s 32 states.

Sheinbaum, a close ally and political protege of the president, has pledged to continue and strengthen López Obrador’s policies and programs, including the provision of welfare and social programs that have helped lift millions of Mexicans out of poverty.

Gálvez, an Indigenous Otomí woman and former senator, quickly became one of Mexico’s best-known politicians after announcing her presidential run and winning the nomination of the National Action Party (PAN), the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Democratic Revolution Party.

While she won the support of millions of Mexicans, many others were clearly not prepared to vote for parties — namely the PRI and the PAN — that have previously held power and are associated with ills such as corruption and high levels of violence.

Mexicans on Sunday also voted to renew both houses of federal Congress and to elect thousands of state and municipal representatives including a new Mexico City mayor and the governors of nine states.

Morena and its allies — the Labor Party (PT) and the Green Party (PVEM) — were on track to win majorities in both houses of federal Congress and also came out on top in many other key contests, including in the Mexico City mayoral election, according to preliminary results.

Mexico News Daily 

The post Claudia Sheinbaum is elected the first female president of Mexico appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Meanwhile, Mexico’s overall homicide numbers remain very high, even though they have trended down since 2021, according to official data.

To gain a better understanding of the recent electoral violence and how it relates to Mexican cartels, and the national security situation more broadly, I spoke to Chris Dalby, director of the World of Crime media company and publishing house, former managing editor of the think tank/media organization Insight Crime and author of a new guide to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG.

Electoral violence and the most powerful Mexican cartels

We started off talking about the violence that has plagued the 2023-24 electoral process, which will culminate this Sunday with the election of almost 20,000 municipal, state and federal representatives.

“What we’re seeing in this electoral cycle is the continuation and worsening of electoral and political criminal relationships that have existed for decades in Mexico,” Dalby said.

He went on to explain that the ways in which the Sinaloa Cartel and the CJNG — Mexico’s two most powerful cartels — seek to hold sway over politicians, the candidates who aspire to public office and the electoral process in Mexico are “drastically different.”

The Sinaloa Cartel

Formerly headed up by the infamous — and now imprisoned — drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the Sinaloa Cartel is “often considered the largest and most powerful drug trafficking organization in the Western Hemisphere,” according to Insight Crime.

Dalby told me that the cartel has long-established criminal networks in areas it has criminal control over — including the states of Sinaloa, Sonora and Baja California — and therefore doesn’t need to be overly violent in order to maintain its influence, including over incoming politicians.

Those networks include corrupt municipal and state officials because “playing ball is just part of the game up there,” Dalby said.      

“Of course, if there is a mayor or governor who doesn’t play ball, bodies are going to drop,” he added, noting that while the Sinaloa Cartel doesn’t have the same penchant for violence as the CJNG, it’s not afraid to use its firepower if need be.

The 2019 Battle of Culiacán, or Culiacanazo, is one example of the cartel’s willingness to use violence to get what it wants.

Dalby explained that in certain parts of Sinaloa, such as Chapo’s home town of Badiraguato or the capital Culiacán, “to reach the position of being a candidate … it’s understood you’re going to do business” with the Sinaloa Cartel, one faction of which is controlled by Chapo’s sons, known as Los Chapitos.

So entrenched is the influence of the Sinaloa Cartel in certain parts of northern Mexico, “you’re not getting nominated” as a candidate by party powerbrokers unless you’re willing to “play ball,” he said.

While Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) governments have governed Sinaloa and Sonora in recent decades, those two states — and Baja California — are now ruled by Morena, the party founded by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Dalby cited the contents of journalist Anabel Hernández’s new book “La Historia Secreta: AMLO y el Cartel de Sinaloa” as evidence that some Morena politicians and officials are in cahoots with the Sinaloa Cartel.

(López Obrador, notably, last week called Hernández “the queen of fiction.”)

Before Morena came to power, the Sinaloa Cartel had “a very long relationship with the PRI” in northern Mexico, Dalby said.

“Dealing with the Sinaloa Cartel … was seen as the cost of doing business for politicians, police prosecutors, [and] even foreign investors,” he added.

The CJNG

The criminal organization headed up by the elusive Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes operates “completely differently” from the Sinaloa Cartel, said Dalby, who has studied, analyzed and reported on crime in Mexico for over a decade.

“They don’t seem that interested in criminal governance, they don’t seem that interested in community relations, they don’t seem that interested in cultivating those long-term political ties that would eventually lead to not needing to kill people,” he said.

“Violence is woven into the MO of the Jalisco Cartel on a far more basic level,” Dalby added.

For that reason, electoral violence and murders of police are higher in states where the CJNG is in control or has a significant presence, he said.

“Every time there’s an election there’s a new crop of candidates to conquer, so to speak. So you either convince them to play with you or you eliminate them,” Dalby said.

“… That’s why in the last two or three [electoral] cycles, the Jalisco Cartel has been the [Mexican cartel] connected to most political violence,” said the organized crime expert.

He asserted that while the CJNG is “not the biggest cartel” and “not the richest cartel —  that’s Sinaloa” — it is “the principal security threat to Mexico”

Dalby said that a lot of flare-ups of violence in Mexico are due to the CJNG moving in on territories controlled by other criminal groups. Sometimes, the ensuing turf wars last for years.

For example, Dalby noted, the CJNG’s fight with the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel over the fuel theft racket in Guanajuato — Mexico’s most violent state in terms of total homicides —  has being going on for longer than World War II.

He also said that cartels, including the CJNG, are “much more horizontal that we think,” explaining that plaza bosses — criminal leaders that control a particular territory for a criminal organization — have “immense leeway to act as they see fit.”

The murder of Morena’s mayoral candidate in Celaya

Expanding on his point about plaza bosses, Dalby mentioned the murder in April of Morena’s mayoral candidate in the Guanajuato city of Celaya, Gisela Gaytán, allegedly by CJNG members.

If it was the Jalisco Cartel who killed her, “I’m not certain that’s a decision that Mencho would be taking,” he said.

“That’s probably the CJNG plaza boss in Guanajuato or in Celaya who thinks that that candidate is likely to win and is not going to play ball and is [therefore] worth taking out,” Dalby said.

Concentration of violence at the municipal level

Political violence in Mexico is most common at the municipal level, at which candidates and officials are usually more accessible to the public and have small or non-existent security details.

Indeed, the majority of candidates killed during the current electoral cycle aspired to become municipal mayors.

Further explaining the concentration of political and electoral violence at the municipal level, Dalby noted that killing a governor or a gubernatorial candidate is “going to bring you more heat” than murdering a mayor or someone running for that office.

Turning his attention back to the CJNG, Dalby said that that cartel engages in the “systematic extortion of everything,” including the budgets of municipal governments.

 The CJNG routinely demands that 10% to 15% of municipal budgets be paid “straight into their bank accounts,” he said.

Dalby added that the Jalisco cartel also demands “help” from municipal officials including mayors to “extort every industry in your town,” which depending on the location could include sectors such as avocado production and ranching.

Why has electoral violence increased since Morena came to power?

I asked Dalby why electoral violence has worsened since President López Obrador took office and since Morena came to power in many of Mexico’s states, including the three states — Chiapas, Guerrero and Michoacán — that have recorded the highest number of candidate murders this electoral cycle.

“Morena as a party doesn’t have a long institutional culture” and therefore doesn’t have long-established political networks, he told me.

“Dealing with Morena is dealing with individual people and that of course can lead to friction because … you don’t have instructions from up high saying ‘you deal with the cartel or otherwise you’re dead,’” Dalby said.

“Every [Morena] mayor, every governor has a little bit more flexibility and that either maximizes the opportunity for corruption or maximizes the opportunity for violence,” he added.

During the current electoral cycle, it should be noted, Morena candidates have been killed in significantly higher numbers than those of any other party.

Can violence in Mexico be reduced in a meaningful way?

Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Dalby whether, in his view, it was in fact possible to reduce violence in a meaningful way in Mexico given that the country is on the doorstep of the world’s largest market for illicit drugs, is located between the U.S. and cocaine-producing countries in South America, is a fentanyl manufacturing hub and is home to criminal organizations fiercely competing to control the illegal narcotics trade.

“Sustained double-digit drops” in homicide numbers would take years and “a level of political stability and policy stability from government to government” in Mexico and the United States that “shows no sign of being realistic,” he told me.

While official homicide numbers — the accuracy of which some analysts question — have declined since 2021, “AMLO has done nothing, precisely nothing, to stop the cartels — no new ideas, no strategy,” Dalby asserted.

Returning to the question of violence reduction, he said it is possible to bring murder numbers down significantly at a local level — in a certain region, for example — by “flooding an area with troops and keeping them there.”

However, that strategy can be “hugely costly” in terms of deaths of security personnel, Dalby said.

He stressed the importance of conducting rigorous investigations into cartels and their illicit activities, and said that Omar García Harfuch — security minister in Claudia Sheinbaum’s Mexico City government and target of a cartel attack in 2020 — is one official who has done that.

If Sheinbaum wins the presidency this Sunday, as polls suggest she will, and García Harfuch — also a former Criminal Investigation Agency chief — gets a position in her cabinet, “I have some hope that there will be some good investigation because … he has consistently investigated cartels,” Dalby said.

He said that “following the money” can be a particularly valuable strategy, but portrayed the efforts of Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit — which in recent years has frozen thousands of bank accounts linked to criminal organizations — as inconsequential.

“Since the war in Ukraine started, the U.S. and the E.U. have shown an ability to track Russian funds around the world, freeze them and choke the Kremlin’s financial resources,” Dalby said.

“Cartels move tens of billions of dollars through shadowy banking practices, through Chinese money laundering, through black market peso exchange and through crypto currency — that can be followed” he said.

Dalby also said that the legalization or decriminalization of drugs can be a successful strategy against cartels, noting that demand in the United States for Mexican marijuana “plummeted” due to widespread legalization of cannabis in the U.S.

However, he called the widespread decriminalization of hard drugs in the United States a “pipe dream.”

Decriminalizing drugs “means having a support system for addicts, it means creating a domestic production and distribution [capacity] legally controlled by the government or private companies,” Dalby said. “That is legally very complicated, economically even more so.”

By Mexico News Daily chief staff writer Peter Davies (peter.davies@mexiconewsdaily.com)

* Chris Dalby’s book about the Jalisco Cartel, “CJNG: A Quick Guide to Mexico’s Deadliest Cartel” is available on Amazon.

The post How Mexican cartels wield electoral violence, according to organized crime expert Chris Dalby appeared first on Mexico News Daily

Still, there is another earlier election that will have far-reaching consequences for all Americans as well. On Sunday, June 2, 2024, Mexico will go to the polls to elect a new president. According to the polls, former Mexico City mayor Claudia Sheinbaum is leading her closest rival, Xóchitl Gálvez, by double digits.

Sheinbaum is known as a leftist nationalist who is committed to continuing the policy platform of current president Andres Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). Gálvez has promised to reject those nationalistic attitudes and policies and adopt a more business-friendly and collaborative relationship with the United States.

Here are seven numerical reasons why the U.S. Congress should pay attention to the Mexican election:

249,735: In December of 2023, almost a quarter of a million migrants were either apprehended or expelled at the United States’ Southwest border. According to the Pew Research Center, that “was the highest monthly total on record, easily eclipsing the previous peak of about 224,000 encounters in May 2022.” The outgoing president, López Obrador, initially worked closely with the U.S. government on this shared goal of reducing illegal immigration, but in recent years, he has scaled back cooperation. The next Mexican president will have to decide whether to renew and re-energize bilateral U.S. cooperation, especially within the realm of controlling the flow of migrants coming through Mexico en route to the southern U.S. border.

280,000 is the number of foreign nationals deported from Mexico in March 2024. Due to pressure from the U.S. government, President López Obrador has once again begun helping stem the flow of migrants across its territory after drastically reducing those efforts in 2023. Will the next president allocate the funding needed to stop migrants within Mexican territory?

107,543 drug overdoses occurred in the United States in 2023, according to the CDC. Mexico is a critically important partner in fighting the drug trade, but in recent years, the Mexican government has taken a lighter hand when it comes to tackling drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs). President López Obrador has adopted a “hugs, not bullets” strategy in dealing with organized crime and has repeatedly denied Mexican involvement in manufacturing fentanyl, the most lethal drug currently crossing the border. If the next president continues this policy of inaction, the synthetic drug problem in the United States will only worsen, with catastrophic consequences for public health.

US $63.3 billion is the amount of remittances sent to Mexico in 2023, almost all of which came from the United States. This number has grown from $36 billion before the pandemic. In large part, this flow of dollars to the Mexican economy has helped sustain domestic demand and has compensated for a lack of growth. If the next president can stimulate the Mexican economy, these remittances will become much less important.

US $44.2 billion is the value of refined petroleum products exported by the United States to Mexico in 2022. Mexico has become the United States’ largest export market for gasoline and other refined products, and this sum has grown four-fold in the past decade. AMLO has overseen a rapid deterioration in Mexico’s oil sector but has committed himself to a very ambitious and expensive goal of producing more refined products at home. If successful, this “energy sovereignty” policy will directly impact U.S. exports. Of the two leading candidates, Sheinbaum is committed to continuing AMLO’s approach. Galvez supports a free-market model of modernization and liberalization of the sector.

5.7 billion is the volume in cubic feet of natural gas exported to Mexico from the United States every day. Mexico’s industrialization and growing need for power generation will see this number grow even further in the years ahead if the next president pursues the right economic policies. However, a number of economic nationalist voices in the Mexican government have warned of potential over-dependence on U.S.-provided gas, which they believe could pose a threat to Mexico’s sovereignty — a fear that could affect the continued strength and viability of the energy trade.

1: Mexico is the largest trading partner for the United States. In 2023, for the first time, Mexico traded more goods with the United States than any other country, surpassing China and Canada — who, for years, had held the top spot. Total trade between the two countries amounted to $799 billion in 2023. That is $2.2 billion a day, over $91 million an hour, and over $1.5 million a minute. The deepening of ties between the United States and Mexican economies has reached the point where they are an essential element in maintaining U.S. competitiveness. Perhaps this reason, above all the others, is the most compelling reason to pay attention to Mexico’s election.

The choice facing the Mexican people in June is one of continuity or change. Continuity means that cooperation between the United States and Mexico on issues of security, migration, and narco-trafficking will remain difficult and limited. This election is critical for the well-being of citizens and the economies on both sides of the border. Good governance in Mexico, paired with solid cooperation between the new Mexican government and the United States, will be essential in promoting the welfare of both nations.

This article was originally published by The Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center.

Duncan Wood, PhD, Vice President for Strategy & New Initiatives and Senior Advisor to the Mexico Institute, focuses his research and publications on supply chain policy, critical minerals, Mexican politics and US-Mexican ties.  He regularly gives testimony to Congress and other national legislatures, and has published 12 books and is a widely quoted source in national and international media.

The post Opinion: Why should US Congress pay attention to Mexico’s elections? appeared first on Mexico News Daily