The company dedicated to measuring public opinion has records showing the president’s approval levels plummeting since the beginning of 2020
President López Obrador has not regained popularity in any week of this year
According to the most recent publication by Consulta Mitofsky and other public opinion houses, the approval rating of Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador continues to fall for 15 consecutive weeks.
Companies dedicated to researching and interpreting public opinion gather weekly data that helps to understand the pulse of the people regarding their impression of the national president. These have shown a steady loss of approval since the first week of 2020.
The data provided by the various pollsters show that in the first week of January, AMLO’s widespread approval was above 60 percent; today it is 46.5 percent. In other words, in almost three and a half months, López Obrador has lost more than 13 points of approval due to the economic situation in which he has been involved.
Regarding the parameter of disagreement, in the first week of this year, the Tabasco had 41.2%, and in week 15 rose to 52.8 percent. This means that 11.6 percent more people disagree with the decisions he has made at various critical times.
The constant reading of these studies reveals that week 13 was the critical moment in the public evaluation of the president because it was when his level of approval and disapproval were almost at par, where the positive opinion regarding the president remained at 50% and the negative one at 49.9%. After that, the polls have not returned to favor Lopez Obrador.
Campos Esquerra’s pollster closely follows these parameters and continuously publishes the data collected in the newspaper El Economista where, according to him, the #AMLOTrackingPoll is a digital measurement of public service.
Mitofsky’s director said that the coronavirus epidemic has been “seriously” affecting citizen support for the governor, as well as the national economic outlook, but it is not the only thing that has diminished his popularity.
More recently, the meeting of Consuelo Loera, the mother of El Chapo, with AMLO damaged his image.
It is worth mentioning that in March 2019, López Obrador’s approval rating was close to 80%. However, different specific phenomena have negatively impacted his image.
Among these: the event in Culiacán known as “el Culiacanazo” where Chapo Guzmán’s son was released, the raffle of the presidential plane where the presidential plane is not going to be raffled, the almost non-recognition of the feminist struggle, the increase in violence, his meeting with Consuelo Loera, mother of El Chapo, the slow reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic and the lack of medical supplies, are elements that have characterized AMLO’s government.
Public opinion began to disapprove of AMLO’s image after the failed operation on October 17, 2019, when elements of the National Guard and the Secretary of National Defense (Sedena) apprehended and released Ovidio Guzmán López, son of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, where the Sinaloa Cartel unleashed chaos in Culiacán to make them leave their boss alone. On that day, numerous cartel hitmen began to attack at random in different parts of the state capital.
Another day where AMLO’s approval clearly fell was March 8, when he “forgot” about the march to commemorate World Women’s Day and promoted the so-called presidential plane raffle. This communication error lies in the fact that in Mexico, the number of femicides is on the rise and that emblematic cases of violence against women, such as the case of Ingrid Escamilla and little Fatima, were monopolizing the media and social networks. However, the president took distance from these cases and continued to publicize the raffle of the plane that Felipe Calderón bought and used by Enrique Peña Nieto.
