Argentina 2023 election

[Bilardista]

How do you see Millei in this?

In what specifically?

Do you see Millei winning?

I think he has a good chance of making it to the second round. If it's him vs a candidate from JxC, the latter would be the favourite. But if it's him vs the FDT candidate...
Some long four years ahead.

[Estrella]

Dólar blue is in free fall: it will likely hit 500 in the next few days, perhaps even hours. Compared to this time ten years ago, the peso has lost (checks notes) 98.1% of its value. According to Alberto, the blame for the collapse should go to (checks notes) right-wingers who use their traditional tactic of spreading unsubstantiated rumors on the markets and criticizing the government abroad. He said all of this in the middle of a press conference with (checks notes) the visiting Romanian president.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

The polling average up to this point:

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Municipal Elections

There were primary elections held in 7 Peronist governed towns in Mendoza.

6 towns were led by mayors governed by Todos allies, who all won reelection by varying margins over Cambio

Results (including blank/null/invalid votes in the total, only counting parties over the 3% PASO threshold)

Lavalle:

FRENTE ELEGÍ: 68%
CAMBIA MENDOZA: 16%
FRENTE LIBERTARIO DEMÓCRATA Y JUBILADOS: 4%

Maipú:

FRENTE ELEGÍ: 47%
CAMBIA MENDOZA: 28%
FRENTE LIBERTARIO DEMÓCRATA Y JUBILADOS: 6%

Tunuyán:

FRENTE ELEGÍ: 46%
CAMBIA MENDOZA: 33%
FRENTE UNIDOS POR TUNUYÁN: 9%

Santa Rosa:

FRENTE ELEGÍ: 52%
CAMBIA MENDOZA: 35%

La Paz:

FRENTE ELEGÍ: 49%
CAMBIA MENDOZA: 43%

San Rafael:

FRENTE ELEGÍ: 40%
CAMBIA MENDOZA: 36%
FRENTE LIBERTARIO DEMÓCRATA Y JUBILADOS: 9%

The most relevant result came out of San Carlos, where the governing UPF jumped ship to join Omar De Marchi's new rebel coalition, La Unión Mendocina

FRENTE ENCUENTRO POR SAN CARLOS: 34%
CAMBIA MENDOZA: 30%
PARTIDO VERDE: 22%
FRENTE ELEGÍ: 7%

Provincial Elections

Everything seems to be going as expected in Misiones and Jujuy, with the respective governing parties set for relatively easy wins against divided opposition. FIT-U actually came second for the first time in a provincial poll, but they shouldn't celebrate too soon because the very same poll has Milei apparently winning those voters for the Presidential ballot. Only in Argentina!

La Rioja, meanwhile, is in total flux. Bullrich and Milei both visited Chilecito, the second largest town in the province:

https://twitter.com/PatoBullrich/status/1653108103808962560

https://twitter.com/JMilei/status/1652841942382792704

Polling is all over the place. Depending on who you listen to it's either a close fight for first between Quintela and Alvarez with Menem a distant third, or it's a close fight for second between Alvarez and Menem with Quintela safely in first. It kind of reminds me of Neuquén in that the government has a reliable support of 30-40% and the result will depend on who the undecided fall behind. Menem seems to have some momentum from Milei's visit but his lack of organizational backing will hurt him in the rural clientelistic parts of the province so I'd guess the first scenario is more likely than the second.

National Elections

Larreta finally announced the key policy behind his "comprehensive economic plan": he's going to "close the doors" on the Central Bank

https://twitter.com/infobae/status/1653811502934110255

I've seen so many historical and fictional comparisons about Milei that I could make an entire tier list out of it, but one of the best has to be with the Patagonian Beaver. Originally imported in the 40s with the goal of creating a fur trade in Tierra Del Fuego, the beaver's lack of indigenous predators allowed it to spread all across the region, tearing through the local forests and going from a population of a few dozen to numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

Like the beaver, Milei came to prominence because everyone thought he could be used. The moderate business Peronists liked that he promoted pro-market ideas, the PRO hawks liked that he could bring in a bunch of deputies that would support their agenda, the leaders of Todos thought he could be beaten in a polarized election and the barons of the conurbana and interior thought he would split the opposition vote. But now they've all started to realize that he could seriously win the Presidency and that he has no predators. If they try to fight him then they help him by polarizing the election along "pro-Milei" and "anti-Milei" lines whereas taking his ideas only serves to validate him.

A month ago I'd have said Juntos has better odds of victory than Milei but now I'm not so sure. Still, in the last paragraph I guess I wasn't completely accurate because he does have one potential predator: himself. His uncompromising libertarian purist nature occasionally leads him to wind up fighting over decidedly fringe issues like legalized organ selling. At the moment Bullrich and Larreta are counting on Milei shooting himself in the foot enough to arrest his growth before August because they clearly have no plan for how to handle a runoff against him.

[Bilardista]

- Maria Eugenia Vidal anounced she won't run for president, much to the surprise of no one. Thats leaves four candidates in the JxC primary.
Miguel Pichetto made an anouncement of sorts the other day and even put some ads on the streets, but the rumour is that he's really angling for a senate seat. Also Jose Luis Espert, having recently joined JxC, hinted he might run in that primary as well, but nothing concrete yet.

- There hasn't been much movement in the FDT primary after Alberto's decision. Everyone is waiting for Cristina to choose a candidate, but she's puting off endorsing anyone. It' clear no one wants a primary, but without Cristina's intervention, and with the lack of internal negotiation channels and tendency to procrastinate important decisions, i'm not sure how this gets solved before the June 24th deadline for registering candidacies.

- Milei anounced that he won't campaign for or endorse provincial candidates and focus only on the national election. He says it's to save energy and resources for the "big fight", but is really about not getting tied to a bunch of candidates who'll perform poorly like they did in Neuquén and Río Negro. He will after all still support those who poll well like Menem, Ramiro Marra or Ricardo Bussi (yikes).

- Gobernor of Córdoba Juan Schiaretti and former Salta gobernor Juan Manuel Urtubey anounced they have an agreement to compete against each other in a primary. Whoever wins will ocupy the spot of "moderate guy" candidate in the next election.

- The Left Front is holding a primary between Myriam Bregman (PTS), Gabriel Solano (PO) and Celeste Fierro ( MST). Since no one in this country likes primaries, they say they'd rather have a single candidate, but i doesn't seem like any such agreement is likely for now.
Also the New MAS asked to join the Left Front and for their candidate Manuela Castañeira to be included in that primary, but the other parties don't seem too interested in that.

- Business man and media guy Santiago Cúneo is runing for president, and you can get a good idea what he's about from the ads he put on the streets:

[Bilardista]

A second round of provincial elections take place today in Jujuy, La Rioja and Misiones. They all have clear favourites and upsets aren't expected this time.

In Jujuy the UCR is hoping to cotinue their dominance for four more years. After three decades of uninterrupted rule, the PJ was dealt a major blow in 2015, when they lost the province by over 20 points, and against no other than Gerardo Morales the man who ran in 1995, 1999 and 2003, losing all three times (fourth time's the charm, as they say). Morales, the undisputed big man of Jujuy's politics, built a wide opposition alliance, won the province, plunged the local peronism into a crisis they haven't recovered from, and has had little to no real local challengers since. Now he's runing for president, and chose his finance minister Carlos Sadir as his succesor.

As i understand it, Sadir isn't seen as a particularly strong candidate on his own, chosen mainly for his loyalty towards Morales, but Cambia Jujuy (the ruling alliance headed by the UCR) has a strong enough brand that practically any of their candidates would be considered as the favourite. It also helps that the alternatives are all pretty weak.

The peronist camp is divided. The official PJ candidate is business man and media owner Rubén Rivarola, a somewhat controversial figure among his fellow peronists due to his perceived friendliness with Morales. Many acuse Rivarola of having, as president of the local PJ, secretly worked with the governor to get rid of his internal rivals in exchange of suporting government iniatives.  The other peronist candidates are Rodolfo Tecchi, former dean of the Uiversity of Jujuy, and Juan Cardozo Traillou. The later is a last minute replacement for Guillermo Snopek, who was barred from runing due to a law forbiding family members of the governor from being candidates. Turns out Snopek, one of Morales fiercest critics, is also his brother-in-law. This had never been an issue before, that the justice suddenly decided to enforce the law is thought of being the result of the Morales-Rivarola secret pact.

The third actor in this is Alejandro Vilca of the Left Front. The trotskyst are rarely taken seriously, but in Jujuy they've actually goten some real suport, particularly among traditionally peronist voters. And it's not hard to see why, an indigenous garbage collector, Vilca not only has more in common with working class people than someone like Rivarola, he's also closer to what peronism is suposed to represent as well. Not surprisingly he's coming second in most polls.


In Misiones the election is but a formality. The ruling Frente Renovador de la Concordia (FRC), commonly known as "La Renovación", is headed for another easy victory, with their candidate Hugo Passalacqua guaranted to win.

Born as a splinter of the PJ in 2003, the FRC has dominated local politics since then, having practically no opposition and wining  elections with 60-70% of the vote. They are not expected to lose now either, but the margins could be a bit smaller, as JxC has been slowly growing and organizing into a real opposition force. They don't expect to win, but a 25-30% would be considered a solid performance and a step in the right direction.


Lastly theres La Rioja. Since it's creation in the 40's, the PJ has never lost a gubernatorial election here, and it doesn't seem like this will be the year that changes. Incumbent Ricardo Quintela will likely win reelection, though the margin of victory might be smaller than in previous elections, as he's not a specially popular governor.

Against him is JxC's Felipe Alvarez, a rather meh candidate. Honestly this would be a pretty uninteresting election if not for the other opposition challenger, Martin Menem, the expresident's nephew who got into politics a few years ago and did it not in the PJ as one would expect, but as a part of the whole liberal,  "Mileist" movement. How he managed to get so much support so quickly is rather obvious with a name like that, but he's also put in the work and not campaign on his lineage alone. Menem probably takes a bit from everywhere: peronists who don't like Quintela, JxC voters who don't like Alvarez, Milei supporters, people who hear the name Menem and get all nostalgic, etc. He's not likely to win, but if he mananages to relegate Alvarez to third place, that would position him for any future run.

[Red Velvet]

The polling average up to this point:

Goes in line with my early prediction of a FdT vs Milei runoff. Still very early and I imagine this trend of JxC going down in favor of Milei goes all the way until election day.

That’s the long term trend you’ve been seeing in the graphic anyway.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Nothing new in Misiones except flooding, which in Misiones means that it's Sunday.

La Rioja has featured

* Poll operators abandoning their stations to have barbeque
* Poll operators showing up late or not at all
* Accusations of bribing voters
* Accusations of ballot tomfoolery

The last two issues are the eternal bane of small parties in provincial elections. Every election the ballots of inconvenient parties get thrown in the trash, flipped upside down or buried under another candidate's ballots, forcing the voter to play Go Fish through a giant pile of collector lists for the governing party. A particularly determined voter could legally demand that missing ballots are replenished but an equally dedicated crooked poll worker can waste the voter's time in any number of ways without technically violating the law. And of course a small party can't afford to just hand out free stuff to voters like a governing party can.

Both Vilca and Menem claimed that the parties they're in danger of surpassing of intentionally meddling with their ballots and it would hardly be out of character for the accused. I'd guess that they both wind up with a vote percentage in the high teens, a respectable result but insufficient to get second place (at least for Menem, the total collapse of Justicialismo in Jujuy could get Vilca second place even with suppression)

There are also a bunch of clearly fake exit polls with contradictory results. Still, it looks more likely than not that Quintela comes out on top.

The polling average up to this point:

Goes in line with my early prediction of a FdT vs Milei runoff. Still very early and I imagine this trend of JxC going down in favor of Milei goes all the way until election day.

That’s the long term trend you’ve been seeing in the graphic anyway.

Entirely possible. Todos would need to unite behind someone, though; the original plan seems to have been to back Massa but an economy minister with triple digit (and rising) inflation is hardly the model of a strong candidate. If they stay split into the PASO their winning candidate could wind up in 4th place and get squeezed out of the runoff.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

With 19% of the votes counted so far, the incumbent Quintela (FdT) seems to be headed for an easy victory, with 48.5% of the votes against Álvarez (JxC) with 33.5% and Menem (LLA) at a distant third place with16.2% , the rest of the parties (FIT, Fuerza Liberal/Ucedé and La Rioja Puede -some UCR offshoot, idk?- got 1% or less each

JxC seems to have lost the maor races in the capital city to FdT

Also, poll workers (either autoridades de mesa or the fiscales partidarios) being late or not even showing up and ballot tomfoolery are both quite common across all elections in Argentina, the latter largely due to our craptastic multi-paper-ballot system, I've had both happen, to vastly different degrees, at numerous times every time I've been a poll worker and that was mostly in one of the wealthiest and most electorally predictable precincts in the whole country, let alone when I had to work in a voting location where that was in a three-candidate-race district (that wasn't a nice experience to say the least)

[Bilardista]

Final results:

Jujuy

- Carlos Sadir (JxC) 49,52%
- Rubén Rivarola (FDT) 22,32%
- Alejandro Vilca (FIT) 12,81%
- Juan Cardozo Traillou (FDT) 6,66%

La Rioja

- Ricardo Quintela (FDT) 50,63%
- Felipe Álvarez (JxC) 31,89%
- Martín Menem (LLA) 15,56%

Misiones

- Hugo Passalacqua (FRC) 64,21%
- Martín Arjol (JxC) 26,47%
- Isaac Lenguaza (FDT) 4,77%
 

It all went more or less as expected. In Jujuy the PJ saved some face and came second, but the Left Front can still be proud of a strong performace (by their standards of course) and they actually won representation in the legislature again.

In La Rioja Menem underperformed compared to polls, but it's still an alright result imho. The other forces were much more established, and looking into it, i believe this is acually one of the worst results for peronism in the history of the province.

And there isn't much to say about Misiones. Death, taxes and La Renovación wining by huge margins.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

The Supreme Court has suspended the elections for governor in San Juan and Tucumán, which were meant to be this Sunday, until the local courts rule if the current governors can legally run again, due to some issues with term limits

[Peeperkorn]

The A24 network made a "spontaneous" live tv poll of what candidate random people supported for President and Larreta won (and in La Matanza!). But soon everybody realized that his "supporters" were actually actors picked by the reporter if they were drinking Fanta:

https://twitter.com/DruidBloggerOK/status/1656257235406790657?s=20

https://twitter.com/Felii_N/status/1656121964308619264?s=20

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

https://twitter.com/Felii_N/status/1656121964308619264?s=20

This part actually souds quite believable,  long time ago I had to ask random people on the street where they lived, often doing so hundreds of times per day, and a.lot of people genuinely don't know which county (or even province for people living Buenos Aires) they live in, and Moron and 3 de Febrero are two neighboring counties, and someone from Villa Sarmiento or the eastern part of El Palomar is closer to Caserod (the main city of Tres de Febrero) than to downtown Moron, as well as rhere being neighborhoods with related names in both counties

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

This part actually souds quite believable,  long time ago I had to ask random people on the street where they lived, often doing so hundreds of times per day, and a.lot of people genuinely don't know which county (or even province for people living Buenos Aires) they live in, and Moron and 3 de Febrero are two neighboring counties, and someone from Villa Sarmiento or the eastern part of El Palomar is closer to Caserod (the main city of Tres de Febrero) than to downtown Moron, as well as rhere being neighborhoods with related names in both counties

I could believe it if it was just a guy confused about his neighbourhood if moments later he wasn't exposed as faking an arm injury to hide his Fanta, or if the Fantas weren't so conspicuously distributed

https://twitter.com/RAMIROMARRA/status/1656289386374332418

I'd guess the reporter himself wasn't in on it since he pointed out the bizarre "Fanta drinking Larreta voters" himself, but they probably had a source inside A24 who let them know where he'd show up. The only thing funnier than the fact that they'd go so far to win a "man on a street" poll is that he came third despite literally bribing passersby.

Speaking of funny stories, I said nothing interesting happened in Misiones and that wasn't quite right; apparently four wanted felons were caught because they showed up to vote. Their love of democracy went too far, or maybe they just took a bribe to vote without thinking ahead.

In La Rioja Menem underperformed compared to polls, but it's still an alright result imho. The other forces were much more established, and looking into it, i believe this is acually one of the worst results for peronism in the history of the province.

I'm usually the last person to defend pollsters but in this case most of them did okay, it was one weird outlier that threw things off. I think some people overestimated the power of Menem's name alone; the original's strength came from his powerful patronage networks, and once those started to fray even he only managed to take third in 2007. Still, while running on a single list might have hurt his topline numbers it gave him an unexpected boost in the city council elections of the capital and Chilecito, winning first place in both cities.

On that note, Quintela's victory seems pretty straightforward (and I welcome any corrections if I've fallen victim to fake news): a bunch of planes from the federal government loaded with money landed about a week before the election, the money was loaded onto provincial armored cars and then a few days later Justicialista trucks went door to door handing out free food, money and household appliances. The undecided voters didn't take long to decide after that and the government won with just over 50% of the vote. One could argue that really it was an election between two Kirchnerists and a Peronist but this is still a historically strong result for candidates explicitly opposed to the government.

Anyway, there will be 3-5 elections next Sunday, so once again in ascending order of competitiveness we've got

Salta

The second largest Northern province by population, governed by Partido Identidad Salteña's Gustavo Sáenz. After the 2021 legislative elections the top three vote getters, Emiliano Estrada of FdT, Carlos Zapata of Ahora Patria and Felipe Biella of Salta Independiente decided that Sáenz was winning because the major opposition was divided into two blocs, so if they all united they could win. So now instead of two major opposition blocs to Sáenz there are three, who now seems more likely than ever to slide to victory. Estrada can take small comfort in the fact that he'll probably wind up beating the two national coalitions at least.

Safe PAIS

La Pampa

In theory one might think the opposition has a good chance at a flip here. It's a province they've won in national elections more than once and there's no Milei backed candidate to risk splitting the vote. But in provincial elections organization is king and the Peronist organizations of La Pampa are unmatched whereas the local Radicals have all the winning energy of the Washington Generals. There could be a surprise here but I strongly doubt it. Regardless, Todos could still win here overwhelmingly only to get crushed in the national elections so don't read too much into it.

Likely Todos

San Juan

The first of two provinces whose elections were halted by the Supreme Court, governed by Sergio Uñac of Frente de Todos. Uñac's run was challenged on the grounds that he's run too many times and it seems like he's agreed to postpone all elections for the time being. Had the election been held this Sunday he likely would have won for the usual reasons, though San Juan's Juntos branch is made of tougher stuff than in other provinces where they've been easily crushed. It remains to be seen whether Uñac is allowed to remain on the ballot and when the election is rescheduled to. The worst case scenario for Todos would be to suddenly have to replace their gubernatorial candidate with Some Guy and to hold the election alongside the national elections. Short of that they should still prevail, albeit potentially with a reduced margin. Oh, and Milei is technically involved too, but he backed three total nobodies so I doubt his candidates will have much impact here.

Lean Todos (assuming it isn't held alongside the national elections)

Tierra Del Fuego

Argentina's smallest province, governed by FORJA's Gustavo Melella, Argentina's first openly gay governor. Despite its size the province has wildly divergent interest groups: industrial workers in Río Grande, a growing tourist industry in Ushuaia, Antarctic scientists and both oil workers and soldiers spread across the province too. All this combined with the comparative weakness of local political structures produces highly swingy, idiosyncratic and unpredictable results. Still, this time around the government is united behind Melella whereas the opposition is split in three: the Radicals, PRO and the Republicans. The latter were initially part of Ricardo López Murphy's United Republicans but were the sole provincial branch to defect to Milei after the two split up, leaving them not so united. If any province were to produce a shocking unexpected result it'd be TDF but all the evidence points to a relatively safe win for the government.

Lean Todos

Tucumán

The most populous province of northern Argentina, governed by Juan Manzur of Todos. By law a governor and vice governor can each only run twice consecutively, so Manzur took advantage by first running twice as vice under José Alperovich, then swapping places to run as governor twice. The first rock in his shoe came when Alperovich was indicted for committing unspeakable acts against his niece and now the Supreme Court is blocking his third run as vice. Unlike in San Juan everyone wants a different outcome: Todos opposes the decision and wants the election to proceed uninterrupted, Juntos supports the decision and wants to hold all elections except the gubernatorial election on Sunday, and Fuerza Republicana supports the decision but wants to hold all elections at the same time, ideally alongside the national elections.

Even before the result was issued, Tucumán seemed likely to be one of the more competitive provincial races. Manzur has had a lot of scandals and the local opposition has a far better record than in La Pampa or La Rioja. Peronism has seen its most precipitous declines in densely populated areas just like San Miguel and there are no rural strongholds to fall back on like in other provinces. Manzur being kept off the ballot or the election being held later in the year would also both be big disadvantages.

The x-factor is Ricardo Bussi's Fuerza Republicana, who won Milei's endorsement and is running independently. The fear of the opposition is that undecided voters go his way, Todos holds onto their hardcore base of around 40% and the government prevails with a final result of something like 45-40-15.

Probably the best shot at flipping a provincial government of the elections that were going to be held on Sunday, but I still have to rate this one

Tilt Todos

and to close things off with a Tucumán related story, Milei came through the province a few days ago to close out Bussi's campaign and the parading Mileistas crossed paths with the campaign stand of one of Manzur's collector lists. A scuffle broke out and the stand was razed.

https://twitter.com/gladiadormerval/status/1655591039778926597

https://twitter.com/filonewsOK/status/1655629639966945280

A sign of things to come?

[Bilardista]

On that note, Quintela's victory seems pretty straightforward (and I welcome any corrections if I've fallen victim to fake news): a bunch of planes from the federal government loaded with money landed about a week before the election, the money was loaded onto provincial armored cars and then a few days later Justicialista trucks went door to door handing out free food, money and household appliances. The undecided voters didn't take long to decide after that and the government won with just over 50% of the vote.

Uh, were did you get that from? Like yeah, clientelism is a thing, but "planes and armored trucks" does't sound like the way it's commonly done. As far as i know, during campaigns local leaders in poor neighbourhoods will usually give out food or small sums of money for those in need as well as transportation to polling places, it happens everywhere and it's an accepted practice, but i don't think it gets more complicated or elaborate than that, and it's more of a local level thing, nothing of the scale you're describing.

And something like that would have made it to the news, but i didn't see any reporting on that, sounds more like he sort of stuff some random twitter account would say, with the source amounting to "trust me bro".

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Breaking news: Juan Manzur officially announced that he's stepping down from the ticket in Tucumán. A big blow to the government in a key province. It remains to be seen when the election gets rescheduled to, though apparently the provincial constitution requires that they be held concurrently. It's generally expected that they'll end up holding it in June (ie. as soon as possible).

On that note, Quintela's victory seems pretty straightforward (and I welcome any corrections if I've fallen victim to fake news): a bunch of planes from the federal government loaded with money landed about a week before the election, the money was loaded onto provincial armored cars and then a few days later Justicialista trucks went door to door handing out free food, money and household appliances. The undecided voters didn't take long to decide after that and the government won with just over 50% of the vote.

Uh, were did you get that from? Like yeah, clientelism is a thing, but "planes and armored trucks" does't sound like the way it's commonly done. As far as i know, during campaigns local leaders in poor neighbourhoods will usually give out food or small sums of money for those in need as well as transportation to polling places, it happens everywhere and it's an accepted practice, but i don't think it gets more complicated or elaborate than that, and it's more of a local level thing, nothing of the scale you're describing.

And something like that would have made it to the news, but i didn't see any reporting on that, sounds more like he sort of stuff some random twitter account would say, with the source amounting to "trust me bro".

Found a somewhat credible source (LN) about it:

La Rioja: un Hércules con plata, camiones de caudales y cajeros abarrotados, en la previa de la elección

LA RIOJA (Enviada especial).- El oficialismo riojano, que va por la reelección de Ricardo Quintela como gobernador, rechaza de plano que haya prácticas “feudales” en la provincia y que haya votantes que elijan candidatos en función de las ayudas del Estado, sea un empleo público o un subsidio. La votación de este domingo coincide, por la altura del mes, con el inicio del pago de los gobiernos, por lo que hoy se vieron largas filas de gente en los cajeros automáticos y también los camiones violetas del Banco de La Rioja recargándolos.

El miércoles por la mañana hubo revuelo en la ciudad capital por columna de camiones de caudales atravesando la ciudad desde el aeropuerto. Eran los vehículos y la custodia policial que se dirigieron al banco oficial.
Las imágenes de un avión Hércules con los camiones de caudales en el aeropuerto las difundió en su cuenta de Twitter Martín Menem, candidato a gobernador de la Libertad Avanza, quien llegó al aeropuerto para abordar un vuelo de Aerolíneas Argentinas hacia Buenos Aires.

Después circuló en las redes y en algunos medios locales que el avión transportó 360 sacas de dinero que fueron depositadas en el tesoro del banco provincial. De hecho, el tránsito en esa zona del microcentro estuvo cortado por el operativo de seguridad. No hubo ningún comentario por parte del banco ni del Gobierno provincial.
No se trató de un operativo frecuente. Comerciantes de los alrededores del banco coincidieron en que no habían visto este tipo de movimiento antes.

So the innocent explanation is that they just happened to be delivering legitimate transfer payments, which were carried in multiple armoured cars because of inflation. Well, who knows.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Also Jose Luis Espert, having recently joined JxC, hinted he might run in that primary as well, but nothing concrete yet.

Espert finally announced that he'll run for president within JxC's primary

Schiaretti tried to convince JxC to let him run in a broad opposition primary, but this was met with very little enthusiasm , as Larreta, Bullrich and the UCR are already openly backing Luis Juez, Schiaretti and, his late former boss, De La Sota's traditional rival for in Cordoba. Larreta's wing and the UCR said they're tentatively willing to analyze it

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Two minor clarifications ahead of tomorrow's elections:

* TdF has a runoff which will only be avoided if someone gets over 50% of the vote. This is probable but not certain hence why I rated it "lean" and not "safe"

* San Juan will be holding elections for all positions except the governorship. Tucumán's elections will all be rescheduled, probably to June (the sooner the better for the government)

Also Jose Luis Espert, having recently joined JxC, hinted he might run in that primary as well, but nothing concrete yet.

Espert finally announced that he'll run for president within JxC's primary

Schiaretti tried to convince JxC to let him run in a broad opposition primary, but this was met with very little enthusiasm , as Larreta, Bullrich and the UCR are already openly backing Luis Juez, Schiaretti and, his late former boss, De La Sota's traditional rival for in Cordoba. Larreta's wing and the UCR said they're tentatively willing to analyze it

Context: Milei and Espert's split started after López Murphy broke the triumvirate. Rather than run under Espert's party Avanza Libertad, Milei instead started a new party called "The Judean People's Front" "La Libertad Avanza" and completely stopped campaigning in the province. In fact, his only appearance outside of the city after that point was in La Rioja to support Menem.

After the elections things only got worse between the two. Milei argued that his superior percentage of the vote entitled him to leadership of the alliance, whereas Espert claimed that his higher number of raw votes and deputies (at least before Schiaretti narrowly took Espert's third) should make him the leader.

For a while Espert's plan seemed to be to put all his resources into a gubernatorial run in Buenos Aires province, leaving it ambiguous as to whether he'd run under Milei, JxC or independently. Over time as the divide became clear Espert's supporters basically all jumped ship to join Milei, first his provincial legislators and eventually even his seatmate Carolina Píparo. Of all the people elected his only remaining supporter is a lone BA deputy who claims to still support both sides and the only structure left behind him is that of the UCeDé.

I personally think this was a very bad move on Espert's part, but I'll steelman his case for a moment. As usual I forgot to bookmark it but there was a fascinating article about Milei's past, specifically as an economic advisor for various Peronist governments and companies. It claimed that he preferred working for Peronists because Peronists fall in line when the leader gives the order and while many absurd claims have been made about Milei over the past few months the evidence seems to bear that one out. He has very little tolerance for internal dissent and clearly wasn't willing to treat Espert as an equal partner. Espert was probably a bit peeved that Milei slid up, took over the movement he'd spent years building up and tried to turn him into his subordinate.

Espert running for president instead of governor seems like a move designed to hurt Bullrich to the benefit of Larreta. The audience for his announcement was pointedly full of Larreta's Top Guys and I don't think anyone really expects him to do any better than the other testimonial candidates.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Salta used electronic voting and thus is mostly done counting while the rest of the provinces have hardly started. At 89% counted the results stand at

PAIS: 47%
JxC: 18%
Avancemos: 16%
Entre Todos: 5%
Salta Para Todos: 3%
Salta Avanza Con Vos: 3%

Pretty much as expected, Sáenz prevailed over the divided opposition though he'd have liked to have ended up with more than 50%. Estrada's mutant coalition did even worse than expected as the Kirchnerists opposed to Zapata split across the small fry defector lists while Olmedo-Zapata supporters stuck with Juntos.

No results from the other provinces but turnout is reportedly low in Tierra Del Fuego, where it turns out voters aren't the only ones who show up to the polls

https://twitter.com/CuartoPoderTDF/status/1657773563674259457

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

Tierra del Fuego 99% counted:

UNIDOS HACEMOS FUTURO: 51.2%
BLANCO: 21.6%
PROPUESTA REPUBLICANA (PRO): 11.0%
REPUBLICANOS UNIDOS: 7.5%
JUNTOS POR EL CAMBIOTIERRA DEL FUEGO: 5.6%
FRENTE DE IZQUIERDA Y TRABAJADORES - UNIDAD: 3.0%

Melella narrowly avoided a runoff (blanks are counted to my understanding) winning about as many votes as he did last time. Apparently the huge number of collector lists caused voters to take a long time to take their pick, causing initial turnout to appear low. The real winner here is the blank vote at over 20%. Also, D'Hondt wiped out the opposition: both the PRO and JxC lists fell under the threshold to win provincial deputies, meaning at least 13 of 15 seats are going to pro-government parties and 1-2 of the remainder have been won by the Republicans. Milei's insistence on independent, lone lists hurts his gubernatorial candidates but seems to provide outsized returns at the lower level positions.

EDIT: Oh, and I can't believe I forgot to mention it but the JxC candidate's name was literally Blanco like some kind of cosmic spoiler

Meanwhile the results from Antarctica may as well be from the moon for all the resemblance they bear to those from the rest of the province:

JUNTOS POR EL CAMBIOTIERRA DEL FUEGO: 33.3%
REPUBLICANOS UNIDOS: 30.0%
UNIDOS HACEMOS FUTURO: 15.3%
PROPUESTA REPUBLICANA (PRO): 13.6%
BLANCO: 5.1%
FRENTE DE IZQUIERDA Y TRABAJADORES - UNIDAD: 2.8%

(For those who care about the other 3 "regions", Melella won less than half in Ushuaia but more in Rio Grande and totally dominated in Tolhuin, the town where Top Gear was attacked by an angry mob)

La Pampa 98% counted:

FdT: 47.4%
JxC: 42.07%
Comunidad Organizada: 7.0%

A solid second place finish for Juntos considering expectations especially compared to their results elsewhere tonight, and an historically weak one from the government, though they still pulled through in the end.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

San Juan:

The preliminary breakdown of proportional legislative seats is

FSJxT: 9

UxSJ: 7

DyL: 1

The opposition managed to flip the capital but made minimal gains elsewhere. Nobody is really happy with this result. The government is clearly on the decline and in the actual gubernatorial election without collector lists and possibly Uñac's name on the ballot they'll surely do even worse. But the opposition isn't really in a position to capitalize so long as Milei's list runs separately even if they can probably make it close.

Tierra del Fuego:

The electoral commission disqualified 3,000 votes for Republicanos on the basis that a printing error caused their ballots to come out an impermissible shade of yellow. To be clear, the ballots in question were provided by the election authority, not the party. Obviously the matter is being appealed

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Patricia Bulrich anounced that Néstor Grindetti, former mayor of Lanús, as her pick for governor of Buenis Aires, over the American style culture warrior Joaquín de la Torre, Cristian Ritondo (chairman of the Pro caucus in the natioanl House of Representatives) and Javier Iguacel, mayor of Capitán Sarmiento (the only one who's not from Buenos Aires city or its outskirts)

Larreta and Bulrich gave agreed on having only one candidate for mayor of Buenos Aires on the Pro's ballots, without going to a (sub)primary over this post, but they still haven't announced who would that be

Milei's VP candidate is going to be Victoria Villarruel, not the most surprising news ever as she was her ballot mate in 2019 as well and Milei's space doesn't have many well known characters. She first came to prominence as an advocate for the rights of victims of left wing terrorist groups from the 70s (while promoting several conspiracy theories about them), and he holds quite a few not particularly liberal or libertarian ideas, like being in favor of civil unions instead of SSM (as in she said this last week, 13 years after the law that legalized SSM), supporting the spanish VOX party or going back to abortion being heavily restricted

La Libertad Avanza has also presented their official platform, whích includes repealing the abortion and comprehensive sex education (educación sexual integral) laws, supporting school voucherss, ending gratuity within the public healthcare system and  a lot of "law and order/hard on crime" stuff, deregulating gun rights and something about semi-privatizing prisons

https://www.lanacion.com.ar/politica/javier-milei-presento-una-plataforma-electoral-que-incluye-reformas-en-cuanto-a-aborto-armas-nid17052023/

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

A lot happened regarding Milei's campaign but I'm going to cover that all later in a megapost on electoral alliance (since there's a lot of bad info out there).

CFK held a big rally, which can be summarized as

"Macri taking debt from the IMF was bad! Macri is bad! The IMF is bad! Debt is bad! We could come third in this election but I'm still not going to run. Gee, sure is rainy here, thanks for showing up"

Attendees were polled on who they'd vote for in the upcoming elections. Cristina was, of course, the first choice but after being told that she wasn't running their second choice wasn't Massa

https://twitter.com/therealbuni/status/1661821513798934529

Anyway, with the provincial elections held so far I feel reasonably confident in speedrunning through my predictions of (most of) the remaining provinces.

On June 11th there are three elections for San Luis, Tucumán and Corrientes. The latter is only holding legislative elections so I'm not paying much attention but the other two should be relatively close.

San Luis is, on paper, one of the best provinces for the opposition to gain control, considering it voted for Macri even in his 2019 defeat. However the province has been dominated by the Rodríguez Saá clan and while the powerful ex-governor Alberto isn't running the Justicialistas still have his support. On the other hand, his brother Adolfo defected over to the opposition, giving them a combination of strong factors that should break Alberto's iron grip over the province. Tilt JxC

I already covered Tucumán and my analysis is basically the same as before. It could be quite close but the government should still ultimately triumph, even if by less than they'd like thanks to Manzur's absence from the ballot. It would be an upset if they lost, though hardly an enormous upset. Tilt FdT
 
After that, by soonest to farthest we've got

June 25th

Formosa: Titanium Safe FdT

Córdoba: Schiaretti definitely seems weaker than in past elections, but every indication is that he shouldn't have much issue winning reelection. Likely HxC

June 30th

Chubut: The governing Chubut Somos Todos will be running with the backing of the Justicialistas and will probably win without much issue. The opposition has plenty of room to grow but victory seems like a longshot. Also independent anti-megamine parties turned Milei backers are running too under the label Libertad Independiente Chubutense though expectations aren't too high for them. There's definitely a possibility of a weird result here but as things stand it looks Likely CST

August 13th

Santa Cruz: The fact that even Alicia Kirchner didn't want to run her election alongside the national PASO says a lot. Still, Safe FdT

September 10th

Santa Fe: The most likely flip to the opposition of all provinces, Santa Fe was narrowly picked up by Peronism in 2019 with 42% of the vote by sliding through the middle of a split between the independent leftist Frente Progresista Cívico y Social/Frente Amplio Progresista and Juntos. With the national mood far worse than in 2019 and the latter two coalitions running together this time there's little question that governor Marcelo Lewandowski is going to be dealt a huge defeat. The real question is whether this defeat will be delivered by Socialist leader Mónica Fein or JxC Senator Carolina Losada. Losada falls more on the right and is notably close to Milei, who withdrew his local candidates despite relatively strong polling apparently with the goal of helping her across the finish line. Likely JxC/PS

September 17th:

Chaco: Despite being a stereotypical Northern province in many ways Chaco avoids the stereotype of being a Peronist stronghold with a long history of competitiveness. Probably the best opportunity besides Santa Fe and San Luis for an opposition pickup and also likely to be one of the closest provinces of all. Possibly controversial but I still rate it Tilt JxC

September 24th:

Mendoza: For once this opposition stronghold might be one of the most interesting of the provincial elections. The Radical dominated Cambia Mendoza coalition of Alfredo Cornejo finds itself challenged by rebel PRO deputy Omar De Marchi, who has assembled La Union Mendocina of basically all the right of center parties against the government. It would be a real shock if they actually lost but at a minimum the new coalition is expected to win second place, displacing Frente Elegi. While the rebels aren't subordinate to Milei they basically represent a local version of his ideal governing coalition and could cause fissures nationally if they do unexpectedly well. There is a PASO on June 11th but it's far less significant than that of Santa Fe. Likely Cambia Mendoza

October 22nd (Presidential/Legislative 1st round):

CABA: Technically divorced from the national election despite occurring on the same day. There's already been plenty of discussion of the internal drama but whoever wins the PASO will surely come out on top. Titanium Safe JxC

Catamarca: One of the single safest Peronist provinces in the country, but also one of the only provinces with an election linked to the national election. Milei's label, as a result, is hotly contested and whoever wins a spot on his list will surely have an outsized result. If this was disconnected from the national election it'd be Titanium Safe Todos but since weird results could happen nationally I can only give this a Likely FdT rating (and if there's an unexpected catastrophe they could even manage to lose!)

Entre Ríos: All the same factors involving Catamarca apply here, except Entre Ríos is wayyyyyyy less safe for Todos than Catamarca. Reportedly there is a small possibility that the election is disconnected like that of CABA, in which case the government has far better odds of victory. Sebastián Etchevehere, brother of Macri's former Agricultural Minister, is reportedly going to run for Milei if the elections remain connected. Tilt Juntos unless the election is disconnected, in which case it's closer to Tilt Todos.

San Juan and PBA remain to be defined but I've already covered the former and the latter deserves its own post entirely. I might revisit some of the most interesting provinces ie. Mendoza, Chaco, Santa Fe and maaaaybe Chubut plus whichever elections are held alongside the nationals but for the rest I'll only cover the results, if that.

[Red Velvet]

That CFK voter learning Cristina wasn’t running and saying he would vote Milei isn’t surprising at all. People overestimate a lot how ideological the vote really is.

Media exposure is more an important factor for the masses than people give credit for. People will pick from the ones they know exist and seem to be bigger options depending on how much they are discussed around.

[Lexii, harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy]

Jorge Macri has been confirmed as the unity candidate for the Pro ballot within the JxC primaries for mayor, which was decided through a series of 3 phone polls

After Cristina made it abundantly clear that she has no plans to run for president, and no one other particularly strong candidate wanted to run as the kirchnerista sacrificial lamb, the FdT has mainly aligned themselves on two fronts, with Alberto Fernández backing Agustin Rossi and Wado de Pedro with the support of many people close to Cristina or La Cámpora. There's likely to be a Todos presidential primary, with Rossi, Wado, Scioli,and the minor candidacies of Grabois and Claudio Lozano. Massa may also participate in this primary but right now it looks more likely that he'll go first in the list for Diputados for Buenos Aires Province