2000 Mexican general election


General elections were held in Mexico on Sunday, July 2, 2000.
Voters went to the polls to elect:
The presidential elections were won by Vicente Fox of the Alliance for Change, who received 43.4% of the vote, the first time the opposition had won an election since the Mexican Revolution. In the Congressional elections the Alliance for Change emerged as the largest faction in the Chamber of Deputies with 224 of the 500 seats, whilst the Institutional Revolutionary Party remained the largest faction in the Senate with 60 of the 128 seats in the Senate. Voter turnout was between 63 and 64% in the elections.
This historically significant election made Fox the first president elected from an opposition party since Francisco I. Madero in 1910, and the first one in 71 years to defeat, with 42 percent of the vote, the then-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party.

Presidential election

Some isolated incidents of irregularities and problems were reported. For example, one irregularity in the southern state of Campeche involved the European Union electoral observer Rocco Buttiglione and could have created problems for President Ernesto Zedillo had the PRI candidate won. Overall, however, electoral observers identified little evidence that those incidents were centrally coordinated, and critics concluded that those irregularities which did occur did not materially alter the outcome of the presidential vote, which had been more definitive than expected.
Civic organizations fielded more than 80,000 trained electoral observers, foreign observers were invited to witness the process, and numerous "quick count" operations and exit polls validated the official vote tabulation. The largest exit poll was organized by the U.S. firm Penn, Schoen & Berland, financed by a hitherto obscure outfit in Dallas called Democracy Watch. It emerged later that Democracy Watch had effectively been created by Vicente Fox campaign insiders to help prevent the success of any expected election fraud.
Numerous electoral reforms implemented since 1989 aided in the opening of the Mexican political system, and since then opposition parties have made historic gains in elections at all levels. The chief electoral concerns shifted from outright fraud to campaign fairness issues and, between 1995 and 1996, the political parties negotiated constitutional amendments to address these issues. The legislation implemented included major points of consensus that had been worked out with the opposition parties. Under the new laws, public financing predominated over private contributions to political parties, procedures for auditing parties were tightened, and the authority and independence of the electoral institutions were strengthened. The court system was also given greatly expanded authority to hear civil rights cases on electoral matters brought by individuals or groups. In short, the extensive reform efforts of the 1990s "leveled the playing field" for the parties.

Opinion polls

PRI candidate Francisco Labastida led in nearly all the polls throughout the first months of the campaign, although in the final two months his lead grew smaller; on the other hand, PAN candidate Vicente Fox was at second place in most of the polls, but in May and June his percentage of supporters increased and he led in many of the final polls.
Given that the overwhelming majority of the polls failed to predict Fox's victory and instead had indicated that Labastida would win by comfortable margins, it has been asserted that many of those polled lied about their preferences, fearing that if they stated support for an opposition party, they would be stripped by the PRI of the government assistance programs they were receiving. Indeed, the Reforma newspaper, which had predicted a Labastida victory in all of the polls they published during the campaign, attributed their mistake to the so-called fear factor.
Poll sourceDateFox
Labastida
Cárdenas
Others
Sample
size		Ref.
November 199939%43%18%0%N/A
November 199944%39%16%0%N/A
November 199938%41.8%16.5%3.7%1200
November 199933.3%53.1%9.9%3.7%1542
November 199933.8%46.2%11.7%8.3%1537
November 199937%47%11%4%1500
December 199934%47%13%6%1647
December 199939.2%47.1%12.5%1.2%1475
December 199937.8%42.2%17.8%2.2%1006
January 200032%51%11%6%1510
January 200038.6%48.2%12.0%1.2%1544
January 200039%45%14%2%20 866
January 200036.7%49.7%11.9%1.7%1678
January 200042.4%43.5%13.0%1.1%1500
February 200041.1%42.2%14.5%2.2%1200
February 200032.4%45.5%16.1%6.0%1346
February 200044%36%18%2%1113
February 200034.5%45.3%17.2%3.0%2697
February 200038.8%41.8%15.7%3.7%1438
February 200038.6%47.0%13.2%1.2%1510
February 200037.8%50.0%11.0%1.2%2397
February 200035.7%40.5%22.6%1.2%1182
March 200031.8%46.1%17.0%5.1%1322
March 200033.4%51.6%13.6%1.5%1127
March 200039.3%41.6%16.9%2.2%1200
March 200039.7%45.0%12.7%2.6%1438
March 200038.6%47.0%13.3%1.2%1533
March 200043.3%38.8%16.5%1.4%1200
March 200032.3%47.9%17.0%2.8%N/A
April 200031.2%45.7%17.6%5.5%N/A
April 200041.4%46.0%12.3%0.3%1500
April 200032.7%47.4%17.7%2.2%N/A
April 200042%45%12%1%1647
April 200036.9%50.4%10.0%2.7%1920
April 200039.2%42.2%14.0%4.5%1074
April 200046.3%41.6%9.3%2.8%1062
May 200039%45%12%4%1590
May 200039.1%45.5%12.5%2.9%8000
May 200040%42%16%2%1547
May 200043.6%38.6%16.4%1.4%N/A
May 200042.2%35.9%16.2%5.7%1787
May 200036%43%17%4%2005
May 200039.0%42.7%15.1%3.2%2450
12 June 200041%35%20%4%2095
12 June 200041%35%20%4%2095
17 June 200039%43%15%3%2423
18 June 200043%38%17%3%1400
18 June 200036%42%19%3%2750
18 June 200039%38%19%3%2287
18 June 200036%37%27%0%1362
18 June 200039%42%16%3%1545
18 June 200041%44%15%1%1330
19 June 200038%41%18%3%1800
19 June 200041%36%20%3%1542
19 June 200039%43%15%3%1309
23 June 200036%42%16%6%N/A

Election results

Results by state

Based on the official results of the Federal Electoral Institute
StateFoxLabastidaCárdenasRincónCamachoMuñozWrite-in-
Aguascalientes202,335127,13426,2649,4672,2021,389836,291
Baja California429,194319,47777,34014,5623,4703,08050714,965
Baja California Sur60,83456,23045,2292,107460364172,804
Campeche104,498106,34735,0902,4851,4061,2475599,309
Chiapas288,204469,392272,1825,3404,6594,0631,05644,551
Chihuahua549,177460,93176,81011,5694,4873,16660921,350
Coahuila398,800311,48077,39310,3922,1111,8801,45412,464
Colima106,44581,09923,3133,1591,028542394,377
Distrito Federal1,928,0351,060,2271,146,131149,31236,38318,8432,00975,669
Durango211,361222,89250,5926,1441,5791,4698599,294
Guanajuato1,128,780517,815121,48918,24810,8008,4732,87349,039
Guerrero174,962402,091332,0916,1792,9133,00395420,180
Hidalgo282,864355,565136,86112,3195,0344,07875819,997
Jalisco1,392,535941,962163,26945,49417,56711,1103,28748,736
México2,239,7501,637,714961,876121,13740,73327,2033,41692,743
Michoacán419,188441,871543,80413,0587,4446,4042,06030,448
Morelos290,639193,861124,36812,5392,9163,01013612,296
Nayarit107,417173,47963,1213,0921,1751,0243517,043
Nuevo León760,093615,90796,63720,4487,4782,6581,51927,201
Oaxaca301,195486,496282,58711,0748,3727,3051,85139,616
Puebla732,435698,974208,68820,1708,6097,8491,14244,305
Querétaro290,977192,62239,62910,5853,7688,67017013,849
Quintana Roo132,38394,20250,4872,399916729705,216
San Luis Potosí393,997324,23472,59911,0733,3062,28740722,673
Sinaloa230,777621,32990,4887,2052,1891,6751,29015,920
Sonora447,496292,267114,5806,4261,6721,3259413,269
Tabasco174,840269,519213,9835,8172,5991,73265514,036
Tamaulipas521,486445,73791,4269,3873,2106,9321,15719,659
Tlaxcala123,880127,16382,0735,1852,5081,450536,639
Veracruz1,066,7191,008,933491,79125,47411,34310,95698558,630
Yucatán328,503321,39227,2144,2581,34498760213,127
Zacatecas169,837197,336117,3756,2772,9081,99343912,461
Total15,989,63613,579,7186,256,780592,381206,589156,89631,461788,157

Voter demographics

Source: Exit poll published by the Reforma newspaper.

Congress of the Union

Senate

Chamber of Deputies