For the first time since Mexico's 2012 presidential campaign season officially opened on March 30, PRD candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador has posted higher numbers than PAN nominee Josefina Vázquez Mota. Although front runner Enrique Peña Nieto continues to maintain an easy double digit lead over both, with support in excess of 50% in every major poll (but see updates below), López Obrador has been steadily gaining ground against Vázquez Mota in recent days.
Mexico's Milenio news network and another organization took the telephone poll of 1,152 registered probable voters between Apr. 17 and 19. Like every poll it's but a snapshot in time, but multiple polls considered together suggest trends and directions. The message from recent ones is clear: Josefina is firmly mired in the mud and going nowhere (despite recent internal shakeups to get her campaign rolling), Enrique remains king of the hill, and Andrés Manuel -- once hopelessly behind in third place -- is no longer a candidate to be discounted. His supporters have not forgotten than six years ago, he lost the presidential race by just half a percent.
Undecided voters remained high in this poll, at 22.4%. But that's much lower than the 30-35% undecideds reported in previous polls. Candidate support may have begun to gel a bit, with about 70 days remaining before Mexico's July 1 presidential election.
What many will be watching is whether Vázquez Mota begins to bleed off PAN supporters to López Obrador. Some of them just might be inclined to shift loyalty if they believe their first choice candidate cannot win. Perception is everything in politics, and these numbers don't help Josefina's. López Obrador would need a slew of PAN defectors, plus a chunk of the undecided block, to snatch victory from the powerfully charismatic Peña Nieto, who so far appears to be on an unstoppable PRI victory roll right to the front door of Los Pinos.
An interesting footnote to this story: López Obrador said today that he has no confidence in the results, because the poll wasn't conducted "professionally." His opinion is the same with respect to all previous polls; he claims they were unscientific. The PRD nominee says, "we don't know who is in what place, nobody really knows."
Update: Late this evening (Apr. 20), Milenio released its daily "spot" poll. The network surveys 1,000-1,500 registered probable voters (based upon self-reporting) almost every day, and will continue to do so through June 30 (an absurdity, in my opinion). In any case, today's spot poll results are slightly different than the Apr. 17-19 results discussed just above. Vázquez Mota and López Obrador remain in a statistical dead heat (no surprise there, and more good news for the PRD candidate, whether he believes it or not). But the significant news is that for the first time in a long time, Enrique Peña Nieto fell below 50%. I'll be keeping my eye on that number as much as on López Obrador's in the days ahead.
Friday, Apr. 20, 2012
Update Apr. 22: Peña Nieto's sudden slide continues, at least for now:
Sunday, Apr. 22, 2012
For details on who these candidates are and what they and their parties stand for, read:
Mexico's presidential campaign opens (Mar. 30, 2012): http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2012/03/mexicos-presidential-campaign-opens.html#more.
Fanciful and shifting economic promises, a staple in Mexican campaign: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2012/04/fanciful-and-shifting-economic-promises.html.
Enrique Peña Nieto roars on Day 1 in GEA-ISA presidential preference poll: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2012/03/pena-nieto-roars-on-day-1-of-campaign.html.
GEA-ISA March 20 presidential preference poll: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2012/03/latest-gea-isa-presidential-poll-pena.html.
Vázquez Mota continues polling strong in advance of Feb. 5 PAN primary: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2012/01/josefina-mota-continues-polling-strong.html.
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