The PRI was the big loser of last year’s elections. Of the 12 governors that were in play, he won five: Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, Zacatecas, where he already ruled, Sinaloa and Oaxaca, which he recovered. In contrast, it lost seven state governments: Aguascalientes, Chihuahua, Durango, Quintana Roo, Tamaulipas, Puebla and the crown jewel, Veracruz.
This year the panorama for Pena Nieto’s party was no better. However, it won in Nayarit and the State of Mexico. Which defeated previous negative prospectus for the PRI. These results are a puzzle for Mexican presidential front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO). AMLO’s Morena party was very close to winning, but now has none of the nation’s 31 governor’s offices thus no access to potential funding that such power provides for national campaigns. For AMLO to remain a favorite, he will need more than voter outrage at graft, crime, and Donald Trump. Campaigning 101: He will need to broaden his appeal beyond his core supporters, and for that, some believe he will need to change his confrontational style of the past 15 to 20 years, meaning AMLO will need to be another person entirely. Is either that or the experienced presidential candidate will need to bet that now is the time for real campaign disruption and for his authenticity to win. Puzzling indeed.