Sign up here to receive our regular Election Note! Read the full analysis and receive the full version of each note as soon as it is published.

Published 14 September 2023

Libertarian outsider candidate Javier Milei’s victory in the Argentinian presidential primaries was a shock to most observers. Within days, Milei skyrocketed from being considered a dark horse to the favourite to win the race for the presidency. So will Milei win? What would that mean for Argentina? And where does Milei’s support come from? We answer these questions with help from our own Argentinian likely voter poll.

Key takeaways

1. Milei’s shock victory in the primary has blown up Argentinian ‘politics-as-usual’. The three-horse race for the presidency (Milei vs Bullrich vs Massa) is currently wide open.

2. The financial and economic consequences of a Milei victory would be substantial. Milei’s primary win triggered a sharp peso devaluation and renewed risks of a sovereign debt default - trends that are likely to continue if he wins the presidency.

3. Milei’s electorate is young, politically active, and concerned about the economy. If Milei is able to consolidate this base, his movement could become a durable force in Argentinian politics.

What is the state of play?

The results of the Argentinian presidential primaries (PASO) of August 13th shocked observers in Argentina and beyond. The PASO elections serve a dual purpose. Like all primaries, they are a candidate selection mechanism, but given that all Argentinians vote in these elections, they also provide an early view of the state of the race. The shock result? Libertarian outsider candidate Javier Milei finished first with 30% of the national vote. The centre-right opposition coalition ‘Together for Change’ (JxC) came second with 28.3%, while the incumbent ‘Union for the Homeland’ coalition (UP) finished third on 27.3%.

A large part of the ‘shock factor’ of these results came from the fact that Argentinian pollsters had not seen this coming. As Figure 2 shows, Milei trailed the other two candidates by anywhere between 5pp and 10pp before the PASO election in August. After the PASO election, when (presumably) pollsters readjusted their methodology/weighting schemes to the PASO results, Milei shot up to become the strong favourite in the polls. In recent polling averages, Milei polls around 35% and approximately 3.5 points clear of his closest rival Massa.

Does this mean Milei is on track to win the presidency? Although some analysts now see Milei as the strong favourite, this is far from the only possible outcome. Like France, Turkey, and many other democracies, Argentina uses a two-round system to elect its president. The first round of the election will take place on 22 October, 2023. A candidate can be elected president in the first round if they either win over 45% of the vote or get 40% of the vote while finishing more than 10 percentage points ahead of the second-place candidate. If this is not the case, a second round will be held on November 19th between the top two candidates. 

Given his polling numbers, Milei is likely to win the first round of the election but without a margin that is large enough to avoid a second round run-off. Therein lies the danger for any outsider candidate for the presidency. In a run-off between Milei and one of the two establishment candidates, it is all about winning the votes of the candidates that were defeated in the first round. It is not at all impossible that Milei will be defeated in the run-off by a coalition of centre-left and centre-right voters coming together in the second round to avoid a Milei presidency. This ‘anti-radical’ dynamic is a feature of the two-round presidential system, and something that, for example, has also benefited Emmanuel Macron in his two victories over Marine Le Pen in the French presidential elections of 2017 and 2022. 

Why do the Argentinian elections matter?

The greatest challenge facing the next president of Argentina is how to address its ongoing economic crisis. Annual inflation peaked at 100% in 2022 and is set to grow to even higher levels this year. Nearly half of Argentinians live under the poverty line and the value of the peso has been in decline for over 15 years now. And last but not least, the Argentinian government heavily depends on IMF loans and the prospect of a sovereign debt default has haunted successive Argentinian governments. 

The three candidates in the race for the presidency have radically different policy agendas, each of which would have vastly different consequences for Argentina and its economy. Below is a short summary of each of them: 

• Minister of the Economy Sergio Massa represents the incumbent UP coalition. His platform relies on increasing fiscal support for households and a stronger focus on government aid. Most likely, his election would represent the status quo outcome, and would condemn the next government to difficult negotiations with the IMF. The key challenge: how to balance its electorally popular policies to spend more with the IMF’s demands for more expenditure controls. 

• Patricia Bullrich, the candidate put forward by the mainstream opposition (JxC), is a centre-right, pro-business alternative. Her platform is considerably more ‘market-friendly’ than Massa’s, with a focus on fiscal responsibility and attracting foreign investment. Breaking with the status quo, this programme of fiscal austerity would create a window of opportunity to reset relations with the IMF. Socially, Bullrich is seen as a hardline conservative within her party and advocates tough-on-crime policies that are not far from Milei’s. 

• Javier Milei and his party La Libertad Avanza advocate a radical break with the status quo. His programme of strong fiscal austerity combined with decreases in government size and spending come straight from a classic libertarian’s playbook, and are combined with more extreme plans to dollarise the Argentinian economy and abolish its Central Bank. A Milei victory represents significant policy uncertainty, in the midst of which, as we witnessed after the primaries, talks of sovereign default risks are likely to reemerge. 

These three vastly different outcomes for Argentina are the high stakes of this election. To make matters more complicated, the risk of policy change also depends on the results of the parallel legislative election. Though it is beyond the scope of this analysis, it is worth briefly noting that even in case of a Milei victory, he will need to secure support from a parliamentary majority for his plans. Given that only 130 out of 257 seats of the Chamber of Deputies are up for reelection this cycle, it is unlikely that the entire Chamber will turn purple (Milei’s colour). This could restrain policy change to some extent and increases the risk of the political stalemate associated with divided government. 

Who is the Milei voter?

As discussed, Milei secured the support of 3 out of 10 Argentinian voters in the August primaries. What do we know about his electorate? This section dives into Stack’s poll of likely Argentinian voters to get a better understanding of the ‘Milei voter’. This online poll consists of a representative sample of Argentinians (n=1,502) who we consider to be likely voters. Fieldwork took place in late August.

The results of the survey show that Milei draws support from both camps of Argentinian politics. Figure 3 illustrates the voter flows from the 2019 presidential elections to the 2023 primaries, showing that both major parties are struggling to hold onto their 2019 electorates. Overall, we find that 22% of the Argentinians who voted for centre-left candidate Alberto Fernández in 2019 switched to Milei in the 2023 primaries. Similarly, 25% of those who voted for the centre-right candidate Macri also joined Milei’s ranks in 2019. The fact that Milei is drawing support from both of these camps supports the argument that this is not just ‘Argentina swerving to the right’. Instead, Milei has managed to appeal to voters on the left and the right with his platform of radical change. 

Using the polling data, we are able to construct a rough demographic profile of the Milei voter. Reading Figure 4 from top to bottom, our hypothetical ‘base voter’ is a 50-year old woman without a degree. She voted for Fernández in 2019, does not care much for politics, and is not concerned about crime or the state of the Argentinian economy. Given our data, the probability that this voter will have voted for Milei in the 2023 PASO is 14% - very unlikely. With every step down, Figure 4 shows how this probability increases as we change different features of this voter one by one. For example, if this voter were a man, his probability of voting for Milei would increase to 19%. 

As this analysis shows, the Milei PASO electorate skewed male and young, resembling other populist right electorates like Vox in Spain and to some extent the AfD in Germany. However, unlike populist voters elsewhere, we do not find a strong relationship between educational attainment and likelihood of voting for Milei. Whereas in many Western democracies there is a positive correlation between voters voting for the populist right and having lower levels of education, this relationship is non-significant in our data. 

All other things equal, we also find that 2019 Macri voters, specifically younger Macri voters, are more likely to switch to Milei than Fernández’ 2019 voters. Other factors that do significantly affect someone’s likelihood of voting for Milei are being politically active and concerned about crime or the state of the Argentinian economy. Both of these features are typical of protest parties, while the latter is unsurprising given Milei’s programmatic focus on the issues of crime and the economy. These are signals, however, that Milei is drawing support from an active and politically concerned part of the electorate. 

So who is the Milei voter? Although this is just a brief analytical note, there are a couple of takeaways. First, Milei has managed to tap into a part of the electorate with many younger voters who are open to radical change. Ensuring that these voters do in fact show up on election day may be a challenge, but if Milei manages to consolidate this base, his party will be a serious force in Argentinian politics for years to come. Second, the issue profile of the Milei voter shows an emphasis on concerns about the economy and crime. It is likely that this makes the typical Milei voter more similar to a centre-right Bullrich voter than to a centre-left Massa voter. Assuming that both Bullrich and Milei compete over a similar set of voters, the question becomes: is there room for both candidates to progress to the second round? So far, the polls indicate that there is not, given that Milei’s success has come at the expense of Bullrich’s polling numbers.

We are also keeping an eye on:

• Polish parliamentary elections - In October Sejm elections, polls suggest that the incumbent Law and Justice-led government will struggle to hold onto its majority. With Poland adopting an increasingly crucial role in a number of EU policy areas, the results are likely to have a major impact in both Brussels and Warsaw. 

• Dutch parliamentary elections - Without long-serving Prime Minister Mark Rutte, the November elections could cause major turmoil in the otherwise relatively stable politics of the Netherlands. With a united left, two new protest parties and a strong far-right flank, the race is chaotic, unpredictable, and - for the political geeks among us - incredibly fascinating.