On June 2nd, Mexico had a presidential election with three candidates: Claudia Sheinbaum, Xochitl Galvez and Jorge Alvarez Maynez.
Claudia Sheinbaum won. The results:
CLAUDIA SHEINBAUM received 35,924,519 votes, which was 59.7594 % of the total.
XOCHITL GALVEZ received 16,502,697 votes, which was 27.4517 % of the total.
JORGE ALVAREZ MAYNEZ received 6,204,710 votes, which was 10.3213% of the total.
Claudia Sheinbaum’s political party is MORENA,
the same party as current president
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO).
On June 7th, Milenio published an interesting article by Saul Hernandez. The article was entitled Sheinbaum eleva su votación en estados con más programas sociales, which translates to “Sheinbaum elevates her vote in states with more social programs”. Here is the link to the article:
Sheinbaum eleva su votación en estados con más programas sociales – Grupo Milenio
Here’s what Hernandez reports (my translation):
“A cross-reference of data carried out by Milenio reveals that the former chief of government of Mexico City [Claudia Sheinbaum] won the presidential election with 63.5% of the votes in the 16 states with the greatest coverage of social programs. In contrast, she received 56.2% of the votes in the 16 entities with fewer programs.”
To be clear, with the exception of Aguascalientes, Sheinbaum won in every state and in Mexico City. But she had a wider margin of victory in states with more government welfare.
“In Oaxaca and Chiapas, where more than half the population has a subsidy from the federal government, [Claudia Sheinbaum] won with more than 70% of the vote (compared to 59.8% nationally).”
“She also won wide margins in San Luis Potosi, Hidalgo, Veracruz, Nayarit, Yucatan, Campeche, Puebla and Guerrero, where the signature programs of Obradorism surpass the national coverage of 29% and arrived to least 1 of every 3 persons.”
“In contrast, her victory was more modest in places where scholarship and pensions are not so broad. This is the case of Nuevo Leon, Queretaro, Guanajuato and Jalisco, where fewer than a fifth of the population receives federal assistance.”
“In Aguascalientes, the only entity in which the opposition candidate Xochitl Galvez beat Sheinbaum, social programs only benefit 15% of the inhabitants.”
Then Hernandez looks back six years to the previous election:
“…[I]n the same 16 states where Claudia Sheinbaum won with a wide margin, Lopez Obrador also obtained a wider victory six years ago (56.6%) than he obtained in the other half of the country (49.7%). This was before there were so many social programs.”
“Sheinbaum swept the election where Andres Manuel also did before. The difference is that with [Sheinbaum] the margin of victory was even wider, now with the asstance programs of Obradorism at their height.”
This also fits in with a national exit poll conducted by El Financiero (my translation):
“Another weighty factor in the [vote for MORENA] was that of social programs: 56% of the voters reported themselves, their family or both, having received social benefits from the government. Among that segment of beneficiaries, Sheinbaum received 69% of the vote, in contrast to 23% for Xochitl Galvez. Nevertheless, Sheinbaum also had the advantage among non-beneficiaries, obtaining 49% of the votes of that sector, in contrast to 37% who chose to vote for the opposition candidate [Galvez].”
It definitely appears that AMLO’s social assistance programs had an effect on the election, driving up the vote for the MORENA candidate Claudia Sheinbaum.
But then, since the ancient Romans, politicians have used public assistance to gain public support.