AMLO Increases Lead in Mexico's Presidential Polls

Already Mexico’s favorite to win next Sunday’s presidential elections, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) has increased his lead in the polls by 0.5 percentage points since last month, according to the Consulta Mitofsky polling firm.

The poll, which was released on Sunday, showed former Mexico City mayor AMLO had 37.7 percent of voter support. Meanwhile, his closest rival Ricardo Anaya, from the center-right National Action Party (PAN) and coalition For Mexico to the Front, fell 0.3 points to 20 percent since May. Consulta Mitofsky surveyed some 1,000 voters from June 16-19.

Candidate of the ruling conservative Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Jose Antonio Meade, who remains the third most popular contender, rose to 17.7 percent from 17.1 percent last month.

While controversial independent contestant, Jaime Rodriguez, fell one-tenth of a point in this month’s polls to 3.1 percent of support.

The presidential election is on July 1.

This is AMLO’s third presidential race. The frontrunner was runner-up in both the 2006 and 2012 elections. After his most recent defeat, AMLO departed from the left-of-center Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) to form the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) in 2012. Analysts say the new party is on track to become the biggest Congressional bloc after the general elections.

MORENA has entered electoral pacts with the smaller leftist Labor Party (PT) and the conservative, religious Social Encounter Party (PES). PRI and PAN members have even defected from their traditional parties to join AMLO's MORENA.

In the northeastern border state of Tamaulipas, where the PRI and PAN have been popular for decades, many candidates who are formerly of these two traditionally dominant parties will represent MORENA.

A candidate for mayor in Reynosa, Tamaulipas' biggest city, is a former PAN member who served in the state congress. MORENA also has mayoral contenders, all ex-PRI members, running across Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros and Tampico.

Lopez Obrador has vowed to root out corruption and violence, for which the PRI is widely blamed. Last year state prosecutors arrested a former PRI Tamaulipas governor for co-operating a major drug cartel - Gulf cartel.

AMLO has also pledged to raise the minimum wage, increase access to higher education and take the military off the streets, a measure which was codified by the current Enrique Peña Nieto administration in 2017.