MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum has a commanding lead over her nearest rival in the contest to win Mexico’s presidential election next year, opinion polls showed on Monday.
A Sept. 30-Oct. 5 survey of 800 voters by polling firm Parametria showed Sheinbaum, candidate of the ruling leftist National Regeneration Movement (MORENA), backed by more than half the electorate in two match-ups with possible rivals.
The first showed Sheinbaum with 55% support, and Xochitl Galvez, candidate of the main right-left opposition alliance, with 20%, in a scenario with ex-foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard running for Citizens Movement (MC), another opposition party.
Ebrard, who finished runner-up to Sheinbaum in the race to secure the MORENA candidacy and denounced the selection process as unfair, has not declared himself for the center-left MC. In that theoretical configuration he was seen winning 12% support.
If either Sheinbaum or Galvez are victorious in the June 2, 2024 vote, they would be the first female president in Mexico’s history.
Sheinbaum, 61, has the firm backing of popular President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who cannot run again because Mexican law restricts the president to a single six-year term.
In a separate match-up in which Samuel Garcia, governor of northern Nuevo Leon state was posited as MC’s presidential candidate, Sheinbaum was seen winning 60% support, compared to 17% for Galvez. Garcia garnered the backing of 9%.
MC has said it will announce its candidate in January.
The survey also showed Sheinbaum was better known, being recognized by 69% of voters, compared to 51% for Galvez.
Parametria said its poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
A separate Sept. 29-Oct 1 survey of 1,600 voters by polling firm Consulta Mitofsky showed Sheinbaum winning 47.7% support for the presidency, Galvez with 27% and MC’s Garcia with 9.7%.
(Reporting by Dave Graham; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
