Revised data of Argentina’s primaries reveals candidates closer than expected. Argentina’s recent PASO elections brought the top three political groups closer in terms of votes.
The official count conducted by Argentina’s electoral authorities for the Primaries, Open, Simultaneous, and Mandatory Elections (PASO) has narrowed the gap between the country’s three main political forces:
- La Libertad Avanza (right),
- Juntos por el Cambio (center-right), and
- Unión por la Patria (UP, center-left).
The National Electoral Chamber reported that the difference between these three groups was less than 3%.
The leading force La Libertad Avanza, represented by presidential candidate economist Javier Milei, saw a decrease from 30.04% to 29.86% of the votes.
Juntos por el Cambio, with former Security Minister Patricia Bullrich as their presidential candidate, decreased from 28.27% to 28%.
The ruling coalition Unión por la Patria (UP), endorsing Minister of Economy Sergio Massa for president, only saw a slight increase from 27.27% to 27.28% in the final count.
La Libertad Avanza, which garnered a total of 7,352,244 votes nationwide, surpassed Juntos por el Cambio by 456,303 votes.
Juntos por el Cambio, a party founded by former President Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), received 6,895,941 votes.
The Libertad Avanza held a lead of 633,202 votes over the ruling coalition, which gathered 6,719,042 votes.
The fourth most voted force, Hacemos por Nuestro País, led by former governor of Córdoba Juan Schiaretti, secured 3.71% of valid votes, equivalent to 914,812 ballots.
The Leftist Workers’ Unity Front (FIT-U) was relegated to fourth place with 3.71% of the ballots, equivalent to 642,773 votes.
In the Buenos Aires province, where nearly 37% of the electoral roll resides, UP emerged as the most voted political space for the presidential category with 2,967,686 votes and the gubernatorial election.
The PASO, functioning as a national survey, helped define the candidate pairings for the presidential elections on October 22.
Notably, 31% of the electoral roll did not participate in the elections, marking the highest abstention rate for presidential PASO since their establishment in 2011.