Mexico Elects: Ongoing Coverage of the 2024 Vote

The two main institutions charged with overseeing elections in Mexico have faced recent internal battles raising concerns about their ability to perform their functions with less than six months to go. In early December, the electoral court known as the TEPFJ—which is charged with settling electoral disputes and certifying results—experienced a controversial leadership change when its president, Reyes Rodríguez Mondragón, was pressured to hand in his resignation by a group of fellow ministers. On December 15, a majority of court members elected another minister, Mónica Soto, to lead the tribunal. Amid speculation that she has ties to the ruling Morena party, Soto herself cast the tie-breaking vote in her favor. She assumes leadership on January 1.

Meanwhile, the National Electoral Agency (INE)—the top institution handling electoral processes—has witnessed a flurry of senior-level resignations. This also comes amid claims of a divide between allies and opponents of INE President Guadalupe Taddei. She ascended to her role in April 2023 amid a polarized struggle in which López Obrador sought to reform the agency. Thousands took to the streets nationwide to protest his efforts. 

Speaking of allies and opponents, despite the fact that the PRI is part of the opposition alliance, a group of high-profile PRI members announced their support for the candidacy Morena’s Claudia Sheinbaum on December 19. The 18 priistas—some of whom had already exited the party previously— launched what they call “the progressive alliance,” which includes former Governors of Oaxaca Alejandro Murat and of the State of Mexico Eruviel Ávila. 

The pre-campaign event scorecard: Near the midway point in the pre-campaigns, Animal Político reports that Gálvez has canceled 29 percent of her events, holding 49 since the period began. Sheinbaum has held 168 and plans to hold another 192 by the time pre-campaigns end on January 18.—Carin Zissis

When Xóchitl Gálvez announced her presidential bid in June 2023, she entered the race with a bit of a hue of an outsider. Though she represented the National Action Party (PAN) in the Senate, she was not officially a member of any particular political party and many wondered from where she would source her campaign team. “If she becomes the candidate, it’s going to be incredibly hard for her to put together a campaign team that works and that represents all the people that are supporting her,” political analyst Carlos Bravo Regidor told Americas Quarterly at the time. 

On December 5, Gálvez revealed her complete team, made up of 24 people from the three parties in the Broad Front for Mexico (or FAM) coalition. Key names include campaign manager Santiago Creel, a long-time PAN member and former legislator who was a presidential aspirant earlier this year. Two former official presidential candidates are also on the team: Senator Josefina Vázquez Mota, who ran as the PAN candidate in 2012, and former First Lady Margarita Zavala, who ran as an independent in 2018. Prominent names from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) include ex-Foreign Secretary and former presidential aspirant this year Enrique de la Madrid—charged with overseeing the proposed plan for her government and former Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo, who will focus on foreign affairs. Below is the full list announced December 5, 2023: 

• Santiago Creel, campaign manager 
• Armando Tejeda, head of operations 
• Carolina Viggiano, executive coordinator 
• Ángel Ávila, alliance coordinator 
• Kenia López Ramadán, head of the pre-candidate’s office 
• Rubén Moreira, coordinator of national territories 
• Maximiliano Cortázar, coordinator of social communication 
• Josefina Vázquez Mota, coordinator of campaign leaders 
• Margarita Martínez Fisher, coordinator of voting campaigns 
• Jesús Ortega Martínez, strategic coordinator 
• Margarita Zavala, lead on civil society 
• Enrique de la Madrid, lead on government plan 
• Norma Aceves, lead on attention for people with disabilities 
• Fernando Rodríguez Doval, content coordinator 
• Alejandra Latapí, coordinator of institutional ties 
• Ildefonso Guajardo, lead on foreign relations 
• Alejandra Reynoso, lead on social causes 
• Blanca Alcalá Ruiz, lead on migration issues 
• Leticia Barrera Maldonado, lead on rural ties 
• Alessandra Rojo de la Vega, lead on social activism 
• Julieta Camacho Granados, lead on social management 
• Deborah Romero Vázquez, lead on women’s issues 
• Moisés Gómez Reyna, lead on agenda 

In addition, Gálvez announced that her two children, Diana Vega Gálvez and Juan Pablo Sánchez Gálvez, will have—per the candidate—unpaid social media roles. 

For her part, frontrunner Claudia Sheinbaum announced her team on November 27. The list is made up of big names in the governing Morena party’s Together We Make History alliance, such as former Interior Minister and close AMLO ally Adán Augusto López as her political coordinator; Gerardo Fernández Noroña, an outspoken former legislator for the Labor Party, as social organizations coordinator and spokesperson; and ex-Senator Ricardo Monreal as national territory coordinator. Mario Delgado, the Morena party president, will serve in the role of campaign manager. Tatiana Clouthier, former economy minister and an important figure in AMLO’s 2018 campaign, is making a notable comeback as spokesperson coordinator. Below is the full list announced November 27, 2023:

• Mario Delgado, pre-campaign coordinator 
• Adán Augusto López, political coordinator 
• Ricardo Monreal, coordinator of national territories 
• Gerardo Fernández Noroña, coordinator of social organizations and pre-campaign spokesperson 
• Jesús Valdez Peña, coordinator of international organizations and Mexicans abroad 
• Tatiana Clouthier, coordinator of spokespeople 
• Citlalli Hernández, coordinator of the alliance 
• Renata Turrent, coordinator of ties with the academic community 
• Regina Orozco, coordinator of ties with the cultural community 
• Esthela Damián, tour coordinator 

In addition, on December 3, Sheinbaum announced a strategic team made up of 17 specialists who are charged with, among other things, overseeing forums on major policy issues. Coordinated by former Mexican Ambassador to the UN Juan Ramón de la Fuente, team members include economist Gerardo Esquivel; former PAN Governor of Chihuahua Javier Corral; Sheinbaum’s ex-chief of public security in Mexico City Omar García Harfuch; former Interior Minister Olga Sánchez Cordero; former head of the Supreme Court Arturo Zaldívar; business leader Alta Gracia Gómez Sierra; and historian Lorenzo Meyer. 

In other news, following Nuevo León Governor Samuel García’s failed bid to be the presidential candidate for the Citizen’s Movement, his wife, Mariana Rodríguez, announced that she will seek to be a candidate to be mayor of Monterrey, the state’s capital. (See the post from December 7 below for more. —Carin Zissis

Samuel García, 35, seemed like a competitive presidential candidate in the making. As the governor of business-friendly border state Nuevo León, he proudly displays JFK memorabilia in his office. He and his wife, Mariana Rodríguez, document their lives on social media—birth of their daughter included. Though he polled third among presidential candidates, García drew his strongest support from the country’s sizable youth voting bloc.

But just a few days after launching his pre-campaign, his state descended into chaos due to a dispute over who would step in temporarily as governor during the six-month period that he would compete for the presidency. The state legislature, controlled by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and National Action Party (PAN), selected the interim governor, which would have meant García’s Citizens’ Movement (MC) party would lose executive control of the state. 

Faced with that setback and a legal deadline for him to vacate the governorship, García decided to reinstate himself and Nuevo León woke up on December 2 with two governors. That afternoon, he officially withdrew his presidential bid. By the end of the first week of December, interim Governor Luis Enrique Orozco has ceded the governorship back to García, who is in the second year of a six-year term. 

Not only did the turmoil wreak havoc on Nuevo León’s state politics, but it left the MC without a presidential aspirant. Party leader Dante Delgado indicated on December 4 that the party could potentially name another candidate in January. Two days later, he announced that the MC would exit the opposition’s bloc in the Senate, which includes the PRI, PAN, and Party of the Democratic Revolution. That bloc served as a legislative counterbalance to the governing party’s Morena coalition. The move stoked speculation that the MC is increasingly aligning with López Obrador and Morena. —Carin Zissis

Mexico’s 2024 election will be the biggest in the country’s history. That’s not just due to the sheer number of voters but because—for the first time—all 32 of the country’s states will hold concurrent elections for local seats, in addition to the presidential contest. Mexican voters will cast ballots for more than 20,000 posts across the country. That’s about six times the number of posts up for grabs during the last general elections in 2018. 

The year 2024 also marks a decade since governing party Morena officially registered as a party. In the 10 years since, Morena has become the leading political force in the country with popular President Andrés Manuel López Obrador as its figurehead.

With an eye to the country’s massive vote on June 2, 2024, AS/COA Online maps out the electoral calendar, the positions up for grabs at the federal and state level, what’s at stake in the gubernatorial races, and the demographics of the electorate. 

Read the full article and access charts mapping the race.—Carin Zissis and Jon Orbach