Mexico Trucker Online

MEXICO CITY — Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador got a boost in his hopes to gain the presidency Monday with a new opinion poll showing him 10 points ahead of his closest rival and his party making a surprisingly strong showing in local elections in the nation’s most populous state.

Analysts said the gains, which come less than four months before the July 2 presidential ballot, demonstrate the ability of Lopez Obrador to connect with voters outside his leftist base and reflect a weak campaign by the conservative candidate Felipe Calderon.

“Lopez Obrador looks like a very difficult man to beat,” said George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. “Only a tremendous scandal could rock him now.”

The poll, conducted by newspaper El Universal, gave Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of the capital city, 42 percent of the vote compared with 32 percent for Calderon, of President Vicente Fox’s National Action Party, or PAN.

Roberto Madrazo, of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico for most of the 20th century, was in third place with 24 percent.

The survey was conducted based on personal interviews with 1,500 adults March 3-6. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

In Mexico state, home to 13 percent of the nation’s population, about 14 million people, Lopez Obrador’s Democratic Revolutionary Party, or PRD, made substantial electoral gains in a region where it traditionally has been in third place.

With about 88 percent of the votes tallied from Sunday’s balloting, the PRD had 31.3 percent of votes for the state’s 75 legislative seats, barely trailing the long-dominant PRI, with 31.5 percent of votes.

The PRD also won the mayorship of the state’s largest city, Ecatepec, and held the city hall of the second-largest, Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl.

PAN fell into third place with 28.5 percent of the votes.

Because of its demographics, Mexico state is viewed as a kind of electoral laboratory, and the vote to some degree is seen as a preview of the presidential race.

Jorge Buendia, public relations director for the polling firm IPSOS Bimsa, linked the PRD’s gains to Lopez Obrador’s potent presidential bid.

“We are seeing proof of the Lopez Obrador effect,” Buendia said.

Lopez Obrador rose to prominence as a fiery speaker claiming to represent Mexico’s millions of poor and forgotten. Since January, he has moved toward the political center, promising a balanced foreign policy and fiscal responsibility.

Calderon has waged a campaign attacking Lopez Obrador, saying he is an authoritarian populist and accusing him of receiving support from Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez.

However, Grayson said Calderon’s focus on mudslinging has done him no favors.