What I find interesting is the following:
- Mexico City is not even remotely competitive, despite earlier (6-12 months ago) claims of a credible PRI challenge. Check out the huge advantage of the left's candidate in the polls here. The latest: 60.39 percent, to PRI's 15.4! I readily recall earlier conversations I had with priístas who claimed that Beatriz Paredes would manage to win the city from the left; now, rather, she may actually depress the vote of PRI's 2012 reality-show presidential candidate.
- Mexico State, forget about it - AMLO will likely pull a strong 2, but his destructive interference in the 2011 local election against an alliance did serious damage to the left's credibility
- Jalisco: This one could get interesting. AMLO's gubernatorial candidate Enrique Alfaro Ramírez may actually stand a chance of winning. It's a long shot, but increasingly less so.
-Veracruz: A PRI bastion , but there are massive tensions in the local PRI, not least due to a collapsing state government, internal party division, and long misrule by the PRI - 83 years, to be exact.
- Oaxaca: Thanks to a broad 2010 alliance, which ended 81 years of PRI rule, left very likely to win here
- Guerrero: Unless PRD governor and former PRI politician Aguirre betrays the left to back Peña Nieto - he as promised to back AMLO, which he seems to be doing - this state will likely go with the PRD
- Puebla: Controlled by ultra-conservative forces (the PAN governor is former PRI), the state is nonetheless more competitive than ever, thanks to a 2010 alliances that ended the PRI's disastrous reign of the state, last under the pedophile-protecting governor Mario Marín. AMLO has done much footwork here, and will likely have a strong showing.
In sum: 2012 is far more competitive than most any mainstream analyst suggested only half a year ago.
Source:
Partidos enfocan estrategia en ganar 7 entidades clave. El Universal, June 15, 2012.
