Mexico is almost certainly about to get its first woman president.
Ruling-party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum leads in polls on the race leading to the June 2 vote. The second-place candidate is also a woman. A man running for a small third party essentially has no chance of winning.
Popular President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is barred by law from running for another six-year term, and Sheinbaum is running for his Morena party. Businesswoman, senator and Indigenous Affairs official Xóchitl Gálvez has an uphill battle, backed by a coalition of all the main opposition parties.
Sheinbaum, Mexico City’s former mayor, has a doctorate in energy engineering and a long career in leftist politics. Gálvez helped her family by selling tamales in the street as a girl. She went on to earn a degree in computer engineering and start her own tech companies.
HOW COULD MEXICO’S ELECTION AFFECT MIGRATION?
Most migrants to the United States come over the border with Mexico to Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Mexico has agreed to some things that it isn’t legally obligated to do, such as deploying its National Guard to arrest migrants, and accepting the return of non-Mexicans who pass through on their way to the U.S.
