Mexican presidential candidate Enrique Pena Nieto maintained his two-digit lead as his two rivals fought for second place in the latest opinion poll before the July 1 vote.
Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party,
known as PRI, had 37.9 percent of voter preferences, from 38.4 percent a week
ago, according to the poll released today by Consulta Mitofsky. Support
for Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Party of the Democratic
Revolution rose to 20.5 percent from 19.1 percent, while Josefina Vazquez Mota
of the ruling National Action Party had 20.1 percent backing, down
from 20.8 percent, according to the Mexico City-based polling company.
Pena Nieto has maintained his lead even after making
public blunders in early campaigning and after thousands of students marched
against him in Mexico City last weekend. He has benefited from the fact that
there is no clear second-place candidate to pick up all the votes of people who
don’t want the once-dominant PRI to win, said Roy Campos, who heads Mitofsky.
“When you cannot define second place, there is no
strategic vote,” Campos said in a phone interview in Mexico City. “The
strategic vote is not a vote for whom you want, but a vote against someone you
don’t want.”
Campos said the strategic vote helped
President Felipe Calderon win the 2006 election because PRI voters
who no longer thought their party would win picked him to prevent Lopez Obrador
gaining the presidency.
The Mitofsky poll of 1,000 people was taken May 18 to May
20 and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
*To contact the reporter on this story: Nacha Cattan in
Mexico City at ncattan@bloomberg.net.
