After nine o’clock at night on Tuesday in Mexico City I received one of those alerts that the media provides through a smartphone application, specifically, a notification from one of the newspapers with the highest circulation in Mexico, El Universal:
“CitiBanamex distances itself from the survey referred to by Xóchitl Gálvez at an event of the National Agricultural Council.”
As you already read, the alert detailed how, which according to Wikipedia in its English version is the second largest bank in Mexico, denied and denied any advantage that the candidate of the PRI, PAN and PRD could have boasted to the agroindustrialists.
“Xóchitl Gálvez is missing 20 million votes to be president, Jorge Álvarez Máynez is missing 30 million votes, Claudia Sheinbaum is only missing 11 days to be the president of Mexico.”
Even so, who has held himself as one of the most infamous “moral” leaders of National Action (but who for some is nothing more than a fumigated and resurrected spider), Diego Fernández de Cevallos, had already gone ahead to give the winner to Xóchitl Gálvez on the ‘X’ platform with false information: “CitiBanamex released a survey that confirms what for millions of Mexicans will be the result of June 2. Everyone to vote with conscience and freedom!”
This is going to sound like a cliché or a commonplace, but polls don’t win elections… In the United States we got a big surprise in 2016 when, contrary to the vast majority of political measurements, Donald Trump did win the presidency. Although this depended on the Electoral College system and that in the final count Hillary Clinton obtained an advantage of almost three million votes, the polls were wrong:
1. FiveThirtyEight: In its final forecast on the morning of Election Day, it gave Hillary Clinton a 71 percent chance of winning the presidency and Donald Trump a 29 percent chance.
2. The New York Times Upshot: This model gave Clinton an 85 percent chance of winning compared to Trump’s 15 percent.
3. The Huffington Post: Their final forecast suggested a 98 percent chance of a Clinton victory.
4. RealClearPolitics: Their polling average had Clinton leading by 3.3 percentage points on the eve of the election.
5. Princeton Election Consortium: This forecast gave Clinton a greater than 99 percent chance of winning.
6. The Economist: Their model predicted an 85 percent chance of a Clinton victory.
7. Reuters/Ipsos: Their final poll indicated a 90 percent chance for Clinton.
8. ABC News/Washington Post: Their tracking poll had Clinton leading by 4 percentage points nationally.
9. CBS News/New York Times: This poll showed Clinton ahead by 3 percentage points.
10. NBC News/Wall Street Journal: This poll had Clinton leading by 4 percentage points.
Only Rasmussen Reports, Los Angeles Times/USC Tracking Poll, IBD/TIPP Tracking Poll and State-Specific Polls (the latter showing Trump with a lead in the days before the election in key states such as Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania) indicated that There was a chance that Trump would win, especially if he managed to secure enough votes in the crucial Electoral College states. So there was a chance, statistically speaking!
Today, the only poll that gives Xóchitl Gálvez the winner, by less than one percentage point, is Massive Caller…, but that polling house referred to is a real joke, a laughing stock in the media. Recently, Rodrigo Galván de las Heras showed in the face of the owner of Massive Caller, Carlos Campos, during an interview with host Adela Micha, that they put Ricardo Anaya just four points behind Andrés Manuel López Obrador for the final weeks of the presidential election 2018 when his polling company announced that the now president was going to win by more than 28 million votes, which happened.
In June 2021, Carlos Campos offered a public apology for the “errors” of his polls in the gubernatorial elections of Baja California Sur, Sonora and San Luis Potosí, serious errors from which he said they would learn to “improve the work.” Xóchitl Gálvez herself, a few years ago, made fun of Massive Caller in an interview with Juan Ignacio Zavala (brother-in-law of Felipe Calderón): “They are serious people, not Massive Caller, where anyone pays them and comes out on top, with all due respect.”
No, the polls do not win the elections, but all of them, except the one that Xóchitl Gálvez herself mocks, show Claudia Sheinbaum as the winner on June 2. A couple of days ago, De Las Heras Demotecnia gave the former head of government of Mexico City an advantage of 64 percent of preferences in a housing survey compared to Gálvez’s 28 percent, highlighting that “Morena would be exceeding the 30 million votes that AMLO obtained in 2018.”
And there is still the possibility that Jorge Álvarez Máynez will come in second place… The governor of Nuevo León and one of the most recognizable faces of the Citizen Movement (MC) was boasting after the third and last presidential debate that his friend Máynez (and that that was going to raffle off his Cybertruck) had already surpassed cent for the representative of the PRI, PAN and PRD.
My friend, the lawyer specializing in criminal law, military law and national security César Gutiérrez Priego, told me during an analysis panel on Sin Censura TV something that keeps ringing in my head in the face of this election and that I would later publish on the platform ‘ X ‘: “Xóchitl Gálvez lacks 20 million votes to be president, Jorge Álvarez Máynez 30 million votes, Claudia Sheinbaum is only missing 11 days to be the president of Mexico.”
By the way, have you already voted?
Those who received their ballot at home here in the United States have until May 24 to return them according to the National Electoral Institute, and those of us who decide to vote electronically can do so from our smartphones from May 18 until precisely June 2 at 6 pm Mexico City time, 5 pm Los Angeles, California.
Antonio Ruiz is a Mexican journalist who graduated from the Carlos Septién García School of Journalism; He has a degree from that institution and a professional license issued by the National Registry of Professionals of the SEP. Currently, he is the general director of News at Sin Censura TV, where he also collaborates with his on-air comments as host of the program “Al Despertar con Antonio Ruiz.”