The Josefina Consolidation?

A new poll in Milenio shows Vázquez Mota with a 19-point advantage over Santiago Creel (46.5 to 27.4) in the race for the PAN nomination. Ernesto Cordero lags behind with 12.9 percent.

Vázquez Mota had a nine-point edge in the same poll last week; such a big jump suggests that this might not be the most reliable sample, but she probably got a boost from the news stories about her resignation from the Chamber of Deputies, and, in any event, the trend is going her way. The one criticism lodged by political professionals at the PAN contest was that it was taking far too long to determine a single or a couple of favorites, which meant that the party was going to be playing catchup, with its opponents much further along in the process. If others polls continue to track toward Vázquez Mota, that problem should disappear. It will also be interesting to see if we see some movement in the voter preferences that have tilted overwhelmingly toward Peña Nieto now that he seems to have an identifiable rival (as opposed to a generic PAN candidate and AMLO or Ebrard). Peña Nieto has a huge visibility edge over Vázquez Mota owing to his position and his marriage, but that advantage will certainly start to ebb now, so I think we will soon get a better sense of how enduring his support is than we have had up to now.