CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — Millions of Mexicans head to the polls today to elect a new president and thousands of other leaders, from local mayors to state governors and federal representatives.
The presidential contest is a three-way race. Claudia Sheinbaum was the clear front-runner heading into election day, according to polls, with Xóchitl Gálvez running a distant second and Jorge Álvarez Máynez in third.
Sheinbaum is the former mayor of Mexico City and a political protege of the current – and still popular – President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who is affectionately known in Mexico as "AMLO." That alliance has buoyed Sheinbaum's campaign with a tidal wave of momentum for months, and she has enjoyed double-digit leads in the polls.
Mexican presidents serve a single six-year term and aren't eligible for re-election.
Sunday's election is historic for another reason: It' the biggest in Mexican history, according to its National Electoral Institute, with more than 20,600 elected offices up for grabs across the country.
Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide
Some 98 million Mexicans are registered and eligible to vote in the election, according to the electoral institute. A majority of them – 51 million – are women.
Biden and AMLO:‘High-level chess’: How Biden is navigating his relationship with Mexico’s President ‘AMLO’
Mexican mothers of disappeared women make plea
The mothers of three missing persons sat in the pews of a Catholic church in Ciudad Juárez on Sunday for a mass in honor of their daughters.
They wore T-shirts with each girl’s face and name. They lay missing persons posters on the floor before the altar.
The women belong to a list of 100,000 officially disappeared people, according to the Interior Ministry's national registry.
The special service on a historic election day was a stark reminder that even as Mexicans prepare to elect their first woman president, the country, and this border city, are still plagued by unsolved disappearances and femicides.
Rosa María Hernández Díaz's daughter, Rocío Ramírez Hernández, disappeared in 2011 at 18 years old. Hernández Díaz had a message for the likely next president, before she left Mass to vote.
“I want to remind her she is a woman and a mother,” she said. “And to please empathize with us, the mothers who have missing sons or daughters, and to help us find them.
Hernández Díaz added, "That’s all we want: that she not forget about us.”
-Lauren Villagran, USA TODAY
5-hour wait times reported in Arizona, Texas and California
Early Sunday, thousands of Mexican citizens gathered at different Mexican consulate offices in Arizona, Texas and California. For many, this election marked the first year in which voters abroad could cast their vote in person at 23 consulates in the U.S., Canada and Spain.
About 1,500 ballots were made available at each polling place, according to Mexico's National Election Institute, the agency running the elections process both in country and abroad.
In Phoenix, over 500 voters braved an excessive heat warning in order to cast their vote, waiting outside the Consulate General of Mexico where the line wrapped around the parking lot in front of the building. According to INE staff, many senior citizens unfamiliar with voting machines have been struggling with the technology, causing major delays in a process that should only take a few minutes.
Long lines and wait times were being reported in Houston and Dallas, Texas, as well.
In San Bernardino, California, Mexicans abroad shared frustration on social channels, saying they waited for more than five hours to cast ballots. The same was reported in Santa Ana and Los Angeles.
Videos posted to social media showed long lines of Mexican voters in Madrid, Paris, Montreal and New York.
More than 187,000 Mexicans living abroad are registered to vote, according to Mexico’s National Electoral Institute.
- Silvia Solis and Nadia Cantú, Arizona Republic and Lauren Villagran for USA TODAY
Violence hits Mexico's historic election
Multiple attacks against political candidates and their staff have rocked Mexico as campaigning had wrapped up in the country.
Last week, officials reported that an opposition candidate in the city of Cuautla, located in the south-central state of Morelos, was assassinated. On the same day, a mayorship candidate was hospitalized after an attack in the Jalisco state, along with other violent incidents.
Violence as a broader issue has taken center stage in the election, as Mexico's voters look for answers from their local and national leaders. Cartel groups in some parts of the country are also using the election as a play at power, according to the Associated Press, potentially derailing some pivotal anti-violence efforts.
– Marina Pitofsky, USA TODAY
Border residents cast their ballots
Hundreds of voters snaked around the outdoor gymnasium of a private school in a well-to-do neighborhood of Ciudad Juárez waiting to cast a paper ballot.
This industrial powerhouse across from El Paso, Texas, is home to more than 300 factories that pump out everythingfrom car parts to wind blades for exportto the United States. It's also notorious for its high level ofviolence tied to organized crime.
Areli Márquez, 30, said she had been waiting an hour already but was excited to cast her ballot "during a historic moment" when Mexico will elect its first woman president.
Márquez said she is most concerned with education and violence against women.
"I hope that a woman president can reduce the violence and ensure the value of women's rights," she said. Márquez said she wants to see policies and scholarships that would allow the country's youth to study instead of prematurely going to work to earn for their families.
-Lauren Villagran, USA TODAY
Claudia Sheinbaum votes in Mexico City
Surrounded by hundreds of voters and supporters, Sheinbaum cast her ballot to the chorus of “president, president, president!” Sheinbaum voted in Tlalpan, a borough of the sprawling capital city she previously governed as mayor.The candidate with a substantial lead in the polls arrived at her voting station shortly after 10 a.m. to greet the electorate and stand in line with them.Within an hour, she left the venue, applauded by the crowd.- Diana Garcia for the Arizona Republic
Outgoing president 'AMLO' casts his vote
Accompanied by his wife, López Obrador cast his vote just before 10 a.m. Sunday at a polling site along Morena Street, near his residence at Palacio Nacional in Mexico City.This is the last vote he will cast as President of Mexico before handing leadership over to the next country’s leader on Oct. 1.López Obrador was expected to cast his ballot in support of his party candidate Sheinbaum, who has been ahead in the polls by at least 20 percentage points and the expected winner of Sunday’s election.Meanwhile, in Tlalpan, the Mexico City’s borough where Sheinbaum served as delegation chief from 2015-2017, dozens of voters lined up as they waited for the Morena presidential candidate to cast her vote.
- Joanna Jacobo, Arizona Republic
Will Mexico elect its first female president?
Mexican voters are expected to elect a woman −most likely a woman of Jewish ancestry− to lead the country, beating its neighboring ally and sometimes competitor, the United States, to that distinction.
Sheinbaum is favored to win and become the next negotiator-in-chief with the U.S. on issues from cross-border trade to immigration and drug andfentanyl trafficking, with consequences that inevitably spill into American households.
Gálvez, a businesswoman and former senator, is trailing second place in polls, all but ensuring that Mexico will elect a female head of state before the U.S. does.
Álvarez Máynez is the third candidate and is currently in third place in the polls.
This story will be updated throughout the day.
