Venezuela Poll Shows Machado Crushing Delcy Rodríguez 84% to 5% Head-to-Head

The latest Venezuela poll is one of the most lopsided ever published in Latin America — and it lands the same week Delcy Rodríguez is reshaping the country’s highest court to extend her grip on power.

A new Venezuela poll from local firm Meganalisis shows opposition leader María Corina Machado at 84.36% support against interim president Delcy Rodríguez at 4.95% in a head-to-head race. The same survey records Rodríguez’s disapproval at 92.88% and finds 87.24% of respondents wanting presidential elections held in 2026. The numbers come four months after the US military operation that captured Nicolás Maduro and three months into Rodríguez’s improvised interim presidency.

The Rio Times, the Latin American financial news outlet, reports that the poll figures arrive while Rodríguez is moving to consolidate institutional control. Twelve of 20 Supreme Tribunal of Justice magistrates are set to leave their posts, including Maikel Moreno and Elsa Gómez — both close to the Maduro-Flores family circle. The reshuffling lets Rodríguez install a court designed around her, not around the man she succeeded.

What the Venezuela Poll Numbers Actually Say

The 79-point gap between Machado and Rodríguez is rare in modern Latin American polling. In an open-field scenario, Meganalisis places Machado at 71.25%, Juan Pablo Guanipa at 4.13%, and Rodríguez at 3.95%, while in a six-candidate scenario Machado climbs to 76.28%. The two-way race produces the 84.36-4.95 split that has dominated regional headlines.

Beyond the candidate matchups, the poll measured underlying sentiment. Some 78.26% rated the country’s situation negatively, 82.57% expected family economic conditions to worsen under current leadership, and 89.13% disagreed with President Donald Trump maintaining negotiations with Rodríguez. The opposition leader’s return to Venezuela is also wanted with urgency — 73.50% want her back within two months and 60.29% immediately.

The Supreme Tribunal Purge in Parallel

Rodríguez’s institutional moves run on a separate track from the polling. Twelve magistrates of Venezuela’s TSJ are leaving — eight retired, with several others pushed out — and Maikel Moreno, who chaired the tribunal between 2017 and 2022 and carries sanctions from 42 countries including the United States and the European Union, is one of the most prominent departures. Elsa Janeth Gómez Moreno, head of the Penal Chamber and aunt of Walter Gavidia Flores — Cilia Flores’s eldest son — is also out.

The court was Maduro and Flores’s primary tool for controlling political dissent and validating disputed elections, including the disputed July 2024 vote where the National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner over Edmundo González. Removing the court’s hardline core lets Rodríguez project moderation toward Washington while denying Machado the institutional vehicles she would need for a free election. The opposition reads the purge as cosmetic — Provea and other rights groups note that the underlying authoritarian architecture remains untouched.

Why the Venezuela Poll Numbers Don’t Translate to Power

Polling and electoral mechanics are different problems in Venezuela. The TSJ has interpreted Maduro‘s capture as a “temporary absence” rather than a “permanent absence,” blocking the constitutional 30-day mechanism that would automatically force elections — and as long as the court rules in favor of temporary absence, Rodríguez’s interim presidency can be renewed in 90-day cycles indefinitely. The poll shows what voters want; the legal framework determines what they will get.

Rodríguez’s bet is that Washington will continue accepting her cooperation — oil flows, narcotics intelligence, prisoner releases — in exchange for tolerating an indefinite holding pattern. Trump’s Venezuela transition plan, set out by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in January, includes elections by end of 2026. The poll numbers make that timetable politically expensive for Rodríguez — and politically essential for Machado.

What Comes Next

Rodríguez’s window depends on three variables: Trump’s continued patience, the TSJ’s continued willingness to certify temporary absence, and the opposition’s continued inability to mobilize street pressure. Each is fragile. Sustained 92% disapproval at home combined with a 84% support figure for the opposition’s most prominent leader is a destabilizing baseline for any government, even one shielded by oil revenues and US tactical cooperation.

For markets, the poll matters less than the institutional moves. The TSJ purge signals that Rodríguez’s economic pivot toward US capital and Western mining capital is now matched by an institutional pivot designed to lock in her position. Investors looking for Phase Two of the Trump plan — Western company access, PDVSA reform, the announced US$100 billion investment — will read the magistrate reshuffling as the operational signal that matters.