Mexico’s largest state set for bellwether vote

Voters in Mexico’s largest state go to the polls Sunday to cast ballots for a new governor in an election that’s widely seen as a possible preview of next year’s general election.

The vote in Mexico State is a straight fight between the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and the Morena party of populist outsider Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, according to the latest polls. Some suggest a close race, while others show a virtual tie. Balloting begins at 8 a.m. and ends at 6 p.m. local time for the state’s roughly 11.3 million voters.

This spells trouble for the PRI. It hasn’t lost the governorship in nine decades, and is grappling with President Enrique Pena Nieto’s record-low popularity that’s hurt the party’s hopefuls pitted against Lopez Obrador in early voter opinion polls. PRI gubernatorial candidate Alfredo del Mazo is the son of one former governor of the state and grandson of another. Delfina Gomez of Morena was an elementary school teacher before becoming mayor of Texcoco, a town northeast of the capital that’s been enveloped by its sprawl.

Markets have been watching the race closely, and the peso wobbled on May 31 after one survey showed Morena’s Gomez in the lead. With the country’s political history in mind, some investors are concerned that a win in Mexico State could boost the chances for Lopez Obrador, who has strongly criticized the opening of the country’s energy industry to private investment.

But state and national polls suggest voters’ focus lies elsewhere. A gasoline price hike of as much as 20 percent in January triggered nationwide protests and has been a major catalyst behind Pena Nieto’s drop in popularity. A surge in the homicide rate has 2017 on track to being deadliest year for Mexico this century — surpassing even the height of the drug war — with women increasingly likely to be a victim.

Meanwhile, corruption has also emerged as a key element of the race, with all of the state’s televised debates featuring candidates hurling accusations of graft at one another.