EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A leading Mexican presidential candidate is coming to Juarez, Mexico, for a campaign rally on Saturday. Xochitl Galvez will be visiting Chihuahua City and the regional ranching and agricultural bastion of Camargo after that, her campaign confirmed.
The visit comes days after a televised debate between Galvez, the candidate of the three-party FAM coalition, Jorge Alvarez of Movimiento Ciudadano (MC), and ruling party coalition standard-bearer Claudia Sheinbaum. The June 2 election is likely to produce Mexico’s first female president as MC received under 2% of the vote in the last presidential election and current polls show Alvarez in single digits.
The winner will have to work with the United States in addressing a years-long migration crisis and increasing flows of the deadly drug fentanyl that has figured in many of the 110,000-plus annual overdose deaths in the U.S.
Galvez is speaking at the UACJ gym on the corner of Mejia and Montes de Oca streets at noon. In Juarez, she will address issues of interest to Mexican families such as health, education and daycare, but also touch on her plans to improve public safety and manage transnational migration, her campaign said.
On Sunday, Galvez is in Chihuahua City and in the regional agricultural and ranching center of Camargo, Chihuahua, to talk about the ongoing water crisis in Northern Mexico.
Galvez has been in the state before, but this is her first time as the presidential candidate of the National Action Party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, and the Party of the Democratic Revolution, collectively known as FAM, said Luis Aguilar, her campaign delegate in Chihuahua.
“She wants people to know who she is, how she went to college on a scholarship, how she started a business and created jobs,” Aguilar said. “She wants to talk about health care for families, pensions for older adults, scholarships for young people. She is meeting with a group of moms to talk about longer hours at schools, expanding childcare and women’s issues such as improving health care and keeping them safe.”
Sheinbaum, whom political analysts consider as President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador heir-apparent, was in Juarez last February. Her visit drew thousands to an open-air rally, and polls show her with a double-digit lead over Galvez.
Nonetheless, Aguilar and other supporters say Galvez performed well in last Sunday’s debate and is building momentum with just under two months left before the election.
“The campaign is trending up and that will give us the opportunity to have the best president we’ve ever had,” Aguilar said.
