Mexican Elections 2017-18

[ag]

In the pr seats in the legislature, are the alliances running on unified lists or can you vote for their individual components?

Also crazy that PES is level with PRI. Thanks AMLO for that; we all wanted some emboldened theocrats to become one of the biggest forces in Mexico...

I wrote something about this based on what I learned from AG and reading on line but cannot find it anymore.  

But the PR allocation depends on the nature of the alliance.  

The allied parties could just nominate the same candidate and the voter pick which line to vote for the party (like the way we do it in NY State) PLUS vote for 2 or 3 or more of the same candidate lines to split the PR allocation between the said parties.

Or the allied parties can have one line with the alliance name and parties associated with it and have a contract that states on how each vote will be split between the allied parties for PR allocations.

As for large PES and PT seat count that seems to be a function of AMLO giving them a lot of winnable seats. The FPTP seats are allocated MORENA 150 PES 75 PT 75 and the PES and PT seats seem if anything more winnable than the MORENA seats which is not at all correlated to the real strength of MORENA relative to PES and PT.  Not sure why.  I guess he figured he can control them once he becomes president.

In federal races now it is only the first option: same candidate, different lines.

The things is, MORENA, PT, PES are just labels. Names could run on whatever party lines. There were no primaries: it is, mostly, decisions of the leadership, and AMLO is the leader.

[jaichind]

It seems in the governor races PRI faces total wipe out and PAN faces a significant setback given current polls. They are

Chiapas: Incumbent: PVEM.   MORENA way ahead.  Not clear how we went from PRI-PVEM total domination to a complete PRI-PVEM meltdown.  A local PVEM faction rejecting the backing PRI might have something to do with it.  But I think it is more about Chiapas being very backward and needs federal subsidies and so it always vote for the party than can get money from the central government.  This year that would be MORENA as AMLO is likely to win.

Distrito Federal: Incumbent: PRD.   MORENA solidly ahead with PRD-PAN-MC fighting PRI for a distant second.

Guanajuato: Incumbent: PAN.  PAN well ahead in this most pro-PAN state in Mexico so PAN will not get zero seats this year.  PRI and MORENA fighting for distant second.

Jalisco: Incumbent: PRI.  MC ahead with PRI and MORENA fighting for second.  PAN which is running separately way behind. 

Morelos: Incumbent: PRD.  MORENA which is running the soccer star Blanco well ahead with PRI and PRD fighting for a distant second.

Puebla: Incumbent: PAN.  MORENA and PAN neck-to-neck.  MORENA coming out of nowhere to be competitive in this strong PAN state.  PRI good deal behind.

Tabasco:  Incumbent: PRD.  MORENA way way ahead.  AMLO's home state.

Veracruz: Incumbent: PAN.  MORENA neck-to-neck with PAN-PRD.  PRI good deal behind.

Yucatán: Incumbent: PRI.  PRI and PAN neck-to-neck.  MORENA good deal behind.


It seems if PRI does not win its tossup state of Yucatán it could end up with nothing in a total wipe-out.

[jaichind]

Goldman Sachs report says that AMLO holds a 90% chance of winning the election, followed by Anaya with 10%

[Oryxslayer]

Goldman Sachs report says that AMLO holds a 90% chance of winning the election, followed by Anaya with 10%

Why I have no doubt AMLO will probably win, I have to remind people that the investor-types gave BN 85% chance of victory in Malaysia. They only have the polling data we do, and are trying to get the markets to bake in a result rather then track ground movements. Treat this with a grain of salt.

[jaichind]

El Financiero poll

AMLO (MORENA-PT-PES)       46 (+4)
Anaya (PAN-PRD-MC)           26  (+3)
Meade (PRI-PVEM-PANAL)     20 (-4)
Zavala (PAN rebel)                 5  (-2)
El Bronco                               3 (+1)

http://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/uploads/2018/05/14/6e0e24295e1526277171.png

Who will win
http://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/uploads/2018/05/14/0c72cb7ee11526277283.png

Vote for House
http://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/uploads/2018/05/14/4491777b1a1526277538.png

Regional breakdown
http://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/uploads/2018/05/14/274a10ffa01526276776.png
http://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/uploads/2018/05/14/8ef0327d291526276899.png
 

[ag]

Would have been exciting to stay here through the election day, but, alas, my tentative attempt to come back has shown to me that presence here and self-respect are incompatible.

[jaichind]

Mitofsky - change relative to April

Not much change

AMLO (MORENA-PT-PES)       32.6 (+0.7)
Anaya (PAN-PRD-MC)           20.5 (-0.3)
Meade (PRI-PVEM-PANAL)    14.5 (-2.4)
Zavala (PAN rebel)                 2.7 (-1.1)
El Bronco                              2.9 (+1.3)

[jaichind]

Don’t Just Bet on AMLO to Win Mexico’s Election, UBS Says

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-15/don-t-just-bet-on-amlo-win-in-mexico-says-ubs-think-landslide

UBS report says that the market is still not pricing in not just an AMLO victory but an AMLO with a legislative majority.

[jaichind]

Zavala dropping out of the race.  Perhaps too little too late for Anaya.

[jaichind]

Massive Caller poll on where Zavala's vote is most likely to go.  Of course a majority will be for Anaya.

[jaichind]

Massive Caller Projection of Senate.  MORENA-PT-PES near majority.  Of course the problem with this projection is the seat projection adds up to 129 and not 128.



Edit: they fixed the bug

[jaichind]

SDP poll coming out after Zavala announced that she is dropping out and before the second debate tonight.

AMLO (MORENA-PT-PES)       42.4 (+1.8 )
Anaya (PAN-PRD-MC)           25.8 (-1.5)
Meade (PRI-PVEM-PANAL)    24.2 (+1.3)
El Bronco                              3.3 (+0.7)
Zavala (PAN rebel)                 0.6 (-2.0)

[jaichind]

For the second debate tonight the late hour of the face-off (9:30 p.m. Mexico City time) on the same night of a Mexican soccer league championship match will likely limit viewership and reduce the chance of it being a game changer. 

[jaichind]

Massive caller poll post Zavala dropping out of race

[jaichind]

All 4 candidates attacked Trump in the debates.  El Bronco threatened to expropriate Citigroup’s Mexico unit if Trump keeps attacking Mexico and its economy.  AMLO said he will file complaint with the United Nations against U.S. treatment of migrants. All this equal by all candidates being tough on Trump that seems to work against AMLO to stand out as the anti-Trump.

Massive caller poll has Anaya slightly ahead of AMLO as winner of debates


Although Anaya has a greater lead if it comes down to AMLO vs Aanya who did better


From a tactical voting point of view a vast majority now see this as an AMLO vs Anaya battle, although if the 21% that feels that it is an AMLO vs Meade election are mostly Meade voters that might limit the gains Anaya might make in Meade->Anaya tactical voting.


On who will win the election AMLO's lead is not that massive and I am surprised that over 5% think El Bronco will win.

[King of Kensington]

All 4 candidates attacked Trump in the debates. 

Not surprising, how large is the "pro-Trump" constituency in Mexico?

[jaichind]

It would be useful to look at where the three blocs (PAN-PRD-MC), (PRI-PVEM-PANAL), and (MORENA-PT-PES) have alliances by state.  The chart below shows which states does NOT have alliances for each bloc.

                                    PAN+          PRI+        MORENA+            
Aguascalientes                                 No
Baja California                                 No
Baja California Sur                           No
Campeche
Chiapas
Chihuahua                                      No
Coahuila
Colima
Distrito Federal                               No
Durango                                         No
Guanajuato                                    No
Guerrero
Hidalgo                                                             No
Jalisco                                           No
México
Michoacán                                     No
Morelos                         No
Nayarit
Nuevo León                    No
Oaxaca
Puebla                                          No
Querétaro                                     No
Quintana Roo
San Luis Potosí
Sinaloa
Sonora
Tabasco                                        No
Tamaulipas                                    No
Tlaxcala
Veracruz                                       No
Yucatán
Zacatecas


The PRI-PVEM-PANAL bloc which is the weakest actually has the least number of alliances.   It seems the PRI algorithm for alliances are: For states where the PRI-PVEM are in power have an alliance where the local PRI governor can give aid to the bloc via his control of the local patronage networks.  For states where PRI-PVEM are not in power let all 3 parties run separately since winning FPTP seats seams unlikely and getting the maximum number of vote for PR is the goal.

Main exception is Jalisco where PRI is in power but PRI PVEM and PANAL are running separately.  Also in Morelos and Quintana Roo PRI are not in power but PRI-PVEM-PANAL are running in an alliance.   In both these states it seems that PRI-PVEM-PANAL are so weak that if they ran separately there might be tactical voting for the other two blocs.  Running in an alliance would at least increase the relative competitiveness of PRI-PVEM-PANAL candidates and get more votes for PR.
  
This chart is the same for the Senate races except for Veracruz  where PRI-PVEM-PANAL have an alliance for the Senate race but not the Lower House race.

[jaichind]

Mexico's Anti-Populist Wins Debates, But He Can't Close Poll Gap

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-21/mexico-s-anti-populist-wins-debates-but-he-can-t-close-poll-gap
 

[Hash]

My impression from the debate is that Anaya probably won, although it doesn't really matter much, largely because he was good on the offensive (against both AMLO and Meade) and appeared to be the most prepared. AMLO clearly didn't prepare for the debate and sleepwalked through much of the first half, showing how little he really cares (or knows) about foreign policy (like answering a question about opioids by rehashing his stump speech on corruption and the 'mafia del poder'), but unlike in the first debate he got feistier and began answering Anaya's attacks in kind ('mentiroso y farsante', plus the trolling of 'safeguarding my wallet'). Meade could have done well since he's obviously smart, but he probably ruined it all when he defended EPN's 2016 invitation to Trump, and got hounded for it by Anaya (who brought a picture of the infamous handshake). El Bronco was true to his style.

On a sidenote, it remains distressing how little any of these candidates understand about any of these issues and how most of their 'proposals' are nonsensical or besides the point entirely. I guess this is especially true for AMLO and El Bronco.

I doubt 'Massive Caller' is a real pollster, particularly at the rate at which their call centre is able to churn out all kinds of polls for every state or how they conveniently hide their methodology behind a sketchy paywall. There does seem to be some fairly believable evidence that they're just fabricating their numbers as they go along. Maybe we should just ignore their junk.

[Mike88]

Well, debates are debates. They count very little, like we saw in the 2016 US election, for example. I'm not really inside Mexican politics, but if by election eve, AMLO is in the high 30s, almost 40%, Anaya with 29% and Meade with 20%, could we see a massive "Anyone But AMLO" vote surge? Meaning, PRI voters flocking to Anaya to block AMLO from the presidency? Is that plausible or just wishful thinking?

[jaichind]

Well, debates are debates. They count very little, like we saw in the 2016 US election, for example. I'm not really inside Mexican politics, but if by election eve, AMLO is in the high 30s, almost 40%, Anaya with 29% and Meade with 20%, could we see a massive "Anyone But AMLO" vote surge? Meaning, PRI voters flocking to Anaya to block AMLO from the presidency? Is that plausible or just wishful thinking?

I suspect that if after the third debate we have Anaya within striking distance and Meade far behind there will be tremendous pressure for Meade to drop out.  I just do no thing PRI would do it.  They have to think about the impact down ballot as well as the battle after the election between PRI and PAN to become the main opposition force to AMLO in case AMLO wins regardless.  Besides such a last minute desperate move is not likely to work.  Nixon once said ".. if you ever hear of a group getting together to stop X, put your money on X." 

[jaichind]

@Hash.  Thanks for your comments.  Any feedback on this pollster (Arias Consultores1)?

https://revista32.mx/asi-van-los-presidenciables-octava-encuesta/




They have good breakdowns by state but has a massive lead for AMLO as of May 1st.  Some of the state results as just astounding as they have AMLO at 60%+ in Oaxaca as well as Michoacán (where MORENA was pretty much nothing a couple of years ago), 70%+ in Guerrero, and nearly 70% in Chiapas.  It seems if this pollster  is anything close to legit, then the entire PRI machine down South has gone over to AMLO.

[Hash]

I don't know much about that pollster, but their polls do seem to yield a number of outliers: AMLO appears too high and Anaya too low, and some of their gubernatorial polls have been outliers too. I'm instinctively suspicious of pollsters which can claim to break down their polling numbers for every single state (I didn't really dig too deep, but their methodology is very unclear and their state samples seem to be based on a very poorly defined 'access to social networks' without providing real sample sizes). If it is indeed an online poll where state results are somehow drawn from 'social media presence', then in poor southern states with low internet access, I'd imagine that samples would disproportionately favour AMLO. I don't know much about Mexican pollsters, but I trust those whose polls are published by the mainstream media groups (Reforma, El Universal, El Financiero) and Consulta Mitofsky, as they tend to be a bit more forthcoming with their methodology.

At least in Chiapas, I have little doubt that, in reality, El Güero Velasco's powerful PVEM machine is behind AMLO despite public claims to be supporting Meade and Albores Gleason: to begin with, both of Morena's senatorial candidates in the state are former PVEM operators close to Velasco, including Eduardo Ramírez Aguilar (former president of the state party and former state deputy), while Morena's gubernatorial candidate Rutilio Escandón is known to be close to Velasco (certainly much closer than the PRI-PVEM-Panal's official candidate, Albores Gleason).

[jaichind]

BNP report from a couple of days ago on election

https://globalmarkets.bnpparibas.com/r/2018_MX_Election_tracker_FEB.pdf?t=BGw_FyM5Pht0XnDj1C-wC&stream=true

Has some good data on how tactical voting worked in 2006 and likelihood that it will take place in 2018.

[jaichind]

Mitofsky poll on El Economista has House and Senate projections




One could calculate implied district and PR seats based on party.

For Senate the poll seem to imply

PAN        27
PRD          7
MC           4
PRI         19
PVEM       5
PANAL      2
MORENA  50
PT            6
PES          7
Ind.         1

Which means MORENA-PT-PES with 63 out of 128 and very close to majority

And PR vote share after stripping out nulls and independents has it at

PAN         22.4%
PRD          5.0%
MC           4.3%
PRI         19.3%
PVEM       3.6%
PANAL      2.2%
MORENA  35.0%
PT            4.6%
PES          3.7%

Which means PANAL falls below 3% and will be de-registered with no PR seats allocation

From there one can compute for the senate
           
            Total     District    PR
PAN        27          20         7
PRD          7           7         2
MC           4           3          1
PRI         19         13          6
PVEM       5            4         1
PANAL      2           2          0
MORENA  50        38        12
PT            6          4          2
PES          7          6          1
Ind.         1           0


The house looks like

PAN           89
PRD           31
MC             29
PRI            57
PVEM         17
PANAL         8
MORENA   144
PT              57
PES            67
Ind.             1

Which means  MORENA-PT-PES with 268 and a majority.

With 67 seats PES will hit the 8% rule (seat share could not exceed PR vote share plus 8%) so PES will have no PR seats.  From there we can calculate the district and PR seat count by party

              Total        District         PR
PAN           89             42           47
PRD           31             20           11
MC             29            20             9
PRI            57            16            41
PVEM         17              9             8
PANAL         8              8             0
MORENA   144            70           74
PT              57            47           10
PES            67            67             0
Ind.             1              1