Politics and Polls - 9 September 2020
Polls from Bolivia and Mexico
Good morning. Three items in today’s update:
Bolivia - Poll shows Mesa is the strongest contender against Arce
Ecuador - Correa’s VP candidacy faces obstacle
Mexico - Governor approval ratings rising
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Bolivia - Poll shows Mesa is the strongest contender against Arce
A poll from Ciesmori has the presidential race Arce 26, Mesa 17, Añez 10. At least 30% remain undecided or refuse to respond.
This poll also asked about hypothetical second round matchups:
Arce beats Añez 39% to 34%.
Mesa beats Arce 40% to 35%.
As with other recent polls in Bolivia, this one sparked a debate over methodology and whether it was capturing all of the MAS voters correctly. It’s possible that the MAS vote may be slightly undercounted, but the general trend of this poll confirms the key points that have been in other polls.
Arce is the frontrunner. Every poll including this one has him either in first place alone or in a tie in first place.
Mesa is clearly the strongest of the anti-MAS candidates. There have been no recent polls that have shown Añez doing better than Mesa in the first round. Additionally, this Ciesmori poll highlights the fact Mesa would be a stronger candidate in a second round matchup against Arce. People can argue whether or not the poll is accurate in showing Mesa beating Arce, but he will certainly do better than Añez.
The state-level results reveal how the divisions among the MAS opposition have helped Arce. Mesa, Añez and Camacho all lead in one state each while Arce leads in six states.
A court ruled that former President Evo Morales cannot run for the Senate and the country largely shrugged it off. The overall situation is volatile and if the Anez administration tries to postpone the election or push MAS off the ballot more broadly, major protests are likely. But Morales’s candidacy for the Senate is seen as a vanity move, even among many members of his own party. The controversies about Morales’s candidacy are perceived as separate from the bigger questions about whether the elections are free and fair.
Ecuador - Correa’s VP candidacy faces obstacle
Speaking of candidate bans, Rafael Correa was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to eight years in prison. This conviction places a huge obstacle in the path of Correa’s chances of running for vice president. First, the ruling bans him from future political office. Second, even if that portion of the ruling were overturned, Correa must appear in person to register to run in the election next year. Currently in Belgium, if he tried to enter the country he would be detained as soon as he stepped off the plane.
Mexico - Governor approval ratings rising
El Economista published a Mitofsky poll of all of Mexico’s governors in August.
Above: Map from El Economista
Four things I took away from the data:
There doesn’t appear to be a correlation between security (see my maps here) and gubernatorial approval. Some of the more popular governors are in very unsafe states including Baja California and Sonora.
The overall average approval for governors (see the chart below) has increased since February, even as AMLO’s approval rating has been steady or slightly declining in that same timeframe in most polls.
That approval rise has included governors from all the major political parties. PRI and PAN governors who consider themselves political opponents of the president are not performing much differently from governors who are AMLO allies within Morena.
Claudia Sheinbaum has 61% approval in Mexico City. A recent NYT profile of the mayor portrays her as someone trying to govern in a technocratic way while maintaining her relationship with the country’s president. That mayoral position is clearly a path to national power. Her numbers are better than many of the governors who may consider themselves viable candidates in 2024.
Thanks for reading
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