Mexico's Pena Nieto keeps wide lead in (presidential) race: polls

Chicago Tribune ^ | June 18, 2012 | Dave Graham

[SwinneySwitch]

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's presidential front-runner Enrique Pena Nieto has maintained a wide lead over his rivals with only two weeks remaining until the July 1 election, an opinion poll showed early on Monday.

The survey by polling firm Buendia & Laredo for the El Universal newspaper showed Pena Nieto, the candidate of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) with 37.0 percent support, a dip of 0.8 percentage points from a June 4 poll.

Pena Nieto was under rising pressure earlier this month from leftist rival Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, whose campaign was boosted by student-led opposition to the prospect of victory by the PRI, which dominated Mexico for most of the 20th Century.

Support for Lopez Obrador, runner-up in the 2006 election, fell 0.4 points to 23.5 percent, the latest poll showed. Josefina Vazquez Mota, of the ruling National Action Party (PAN), saw her support dip 1.0 point to 21.4 percent.

A separate poll released by the Parametria polling firm on Monday showed Pena Nieto leading by a narrower margin, with 33 percent of the vote, ahead of Lopez Obrador with 22 percent and Vazquez Mota with 19 percent.

A poll published on Sunday by polling firm BGC for the Excelsior newspaper showed Vazquez Mota in second place, with 29 percent to Pena Nieto's 42 percent, and just two percentage points ahead of Lopez Obrador.

"Pena Nieto has a very consistent advantage ... in spite of negative campaigning (against him)," his campaign chief, Luis Videgaray, told local radio on Monday.

The three surveys were the first since a final televised debate, held on June 10, between the candidates.

[SwinneySwitch]

The presidential race you haven't heard about.

[hinckley buzzard]

It was so much easier for them back in the twenties--whoever got to the radio station with a machine gun first, won.