Mexico Elects First Woman President Following Historic Campaign: 'We Will Have to Walk in Peace'

Claudia Sheinbaum beat Xóchitl Gálvez in a presidential election on Sunday, June 2, becoming Mexico's first woman leader

• Claudia Sheinbaum has been elected Mexico's first woman president

• Sheinbaum, 61, beat another 61-year-old woman, former Sen. Xóchitl Gálvez, in the presidential election held on Sunday

• “For the first time in 200 years of the republic, I will become the first female president of Mexico,” Sheinbaum said

Claudia Sheinbaum has been elected Mexico's first woman president, following a historic campaign season that saw two women leading the pack.

Sheinbaum, 61, beat former Sen. Xóchitl Gálvez, also 61, in the presidential election held on Sunday, June 2. A little-known third candidate, a man representing a much smaller party, trailed far behind throughout the campaign.

According to The New York Times and The Guardian, Sheinbaum won at least 58% of the vote in the landmark election. Gálvez received at least 26.6% of the vote, while the male candidate, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, 38, received at least 9.9%.

“For the first time in 200 years of the republic, I will become the first female president of Mexico,” Sheinbaum said, per The NY Times. “And as I have said on other occasions, I do not arrive alone. We all arrived, with our heroines who gave us our homeland, with our ancestors, our mothers, our daughters and our granddaughters.”

She added that she would work to build a “diverse and democratic” Mexico, per NBC News.

“Our duty is and will always be to look after every single Mexican without distinction," she told supporters in a speech, reported CNN. "So even though many Mexicans do not fully agree with our project, we will have to walk in peace and harmony to continue building a fair and more prosperous Mexico."

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Sheinbaum represents Mexico's left-wing Morena party, which was founded by sitting President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. She resigned as the mayor of Mexico City last summer to run for higher office and had been leading the more conservative Gálvez in polls for months, according to the Associated Press.

A handpicked successor of President López Obrador, Sheinbaum is expected to continue his populist policies.

Per Foreign Policy, some of Sheinbaum's campaign promises include furthering President López Obrador's infrastructure projects and supporting minimum wage increases implemented during his presidency.

While much of the Morena party's platform has been received well by Mexican citizens, some have warned that López Obrador's — and now Sheinbaum's — support of a controversial Constitutional reform could undermine the nation's democratic institutions if passed by the Congress.

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The nonpartisan Wilson Center emphasized that proposed reforms such as electing Supreme Court members, eliminating independent regulatory agencies, militarizing police, and putting electoral authority under control of the president all threaten the nation's democracy.

Gálvez, a former entrepreneur, said in an interview with Expansión Política — which was translated by Mexico News Daily — that her first goal, if she were elected president, would have been to “recover confidence in the country with the rule of law.”

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Violence was also a major issue in the 2024 presidential election, with the country seeing over 164,000 homicides in the six years that López Obrador was president. Gálvez strongly opposed the former president's policy of "hugs not bullets" when it came to confronting drug cartels.

Per Mexico News Daily, she would've also paused tax reform initiatives until the government could inspire confidence from its constituents that public resources and funds were being managed well.

The third candidate in the race, Álvarez Máynez of the Citizen Movement party, was a former federal congressman who hoped to win the young adult vote, but ultimately failed to gain major traction, per the AP.

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