Shannon K. O’Neil
On June 2, Mexican voters will head to the polls to elect a new president, congress, nine governors, and tens of thousands of local officials. Competing for the top job are Claudia Sheinbaum—the chosen candidate of Morena, the ruling party, and former Mexico City mayor, who commands a significant lead in the polls—and Xóchitl Gálvez, a successful businesswoman and former senator supported by a coalition of opposition parties. Six months later, north of the border, the United States will follow suit, with U.S. President Joe Biden and Donald Trump each seeking a second presidential term.
Over the past six years, the tenor of U.S.-Mexican relations has been set by Mexico’s current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, also known as AMLO, who has wielded his domestic popularity and influence over migration to the United States to shape bilateral relations in his favor. This has allowed him often to ignore commercial disputes with the United States, domestic security issues, and U.S. concerns over governance in Mexico—a dynamic that has not always sat well with leaders in Washington.
Mexico’s next president, however, will not have the domestic political leeway AMLO enjoys. Whether in or out of office, AMLO has been a fixture of Mexican politics for decades. He commands the personal loyalty of a broad and ideologically diverse set of politicians, is enormously popular throughout the country, and has consolidated a personalist brand of power. His successor will have to navigate the country’s messy political landscape without these advantages.
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