Claudia Sheinbaum has been elected as Mexico’s first female president in a historic landslide victory.
Mexico’s official electoral authority reported that preliminary results showed the 61-year-old former mayor of Mexico City winning between 58% and 60% of the vote in Sunday’s election.
This gives her a lead of about 30 percentage points over her main rival, businesswoman Xóchitl Gálvez.
Ms. Sheinbaum will replace her mentor, outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, on October 1. A former energy scientist, she has promised continuity, pledging to build on the “advances” made by Mr. López Obrador, particularly the welfare programs that have made him very popular.
In her victory speech, she highlighted the historic nature of this election. Addressing cheering supporters, she said, “For the first time in the 200 years of the [Mexican] Republic, I will become the first woman president of Mexico.”
She emphasized that this achievement was not just hers but for all women.
“I’ve said it from the start, this is not just about me getting [to the top office], it’s about all of us getting here,” she added. “I won’t fail you.”
Ms. Sheinbaum also thanked her rival, Xóchitl Gálvez, who conceded defeat.
Before running for president, Ms. Sheinbaum served as mayor of Mexico City, one of the most influential political positions in the country and a traditional stepping stone to the presidency.
Her maternal grandparents, Jewish immigrants from Bulgaria who fled the Nazis, and her paternal grandparents from Lithuania, all settled in Mexico. Ms. Sheinbaum’s parents were both scientists, and she studied physics before earning a doctorate in energy engineering.
She spent years at a renowned research lab in California studying Mexican energy consumption patterns and became an expert on climate change. Her scientific background and student activism eventually led her to the position of secretary of the environment for Mexico City when Andrés Manuel López Obrador was mayor.
In 2018, she became the first female mayor of Mexico City, a post she held until 2023, when she stepped down to run for president.
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