2023-11-04 03:30:00
On the night of August 13, the majority of Argentines We were surprised to see that the formula with the most votes in the open and simultaneous internal party elections (the PASO) had been the one chaired by Javier Milei, an outsider, whose party did not exist a few years ago and who had never managed to obtain even 15% of the votes at the national level. What’s more, all the polls gave him third place. On the night of October 22 Most of us Argentines were surprised to see that the First Round in the presidential election was won by Sergio Massa, with nearly 10 million votes, leaving star Javier Milei in second place and removing Patricia Bullrich from the competition, whose coalition had even lost votes compared to those it had received in the internal elections two months before. We live from surprise to surprise and it is possible that there will be another surprise on the night of November 19 when the result of the runoff election is known.
Why are we surprised by the election results? In principle, because all the media spread surveys in which voters express who they will vote for and the results of these surveys mostly predicted a very different result than what finally occurred. In the PASO, the polls predicted that Milei would be third and he received the most votes.
In the First Round the polls predicted Milei the winner and he came out second, and far from first (he barely increased the votes he had already obtained in the August internal election).
But it’s not just that the polls misled us. Our perception of reality, filtered by the analysis of the journalistic media, also deceives us. In the PASO no serious analyst risked anticipating that Milei might surprise us. And the same thing happened in the First Round: Nobody bet that Massa would get almost three million more votes than in the previous election.
Before the runoff, a misleading phenomenon occurs once more: the most serious analysts say that something strange is happening that makes the result unpredictable. The vast majority of those consulted, it does not matter if they declare that they will not vote, that they will vote blank, that they will vote for Milei or that they will vote for Massa, the majority say they are sure that the next president will be Massa. Many clarify that that is why they do not even bother to go to vote or that they vote completely blank, they are not afraid of Milei winning: Massa is already assured as the next President of the Nation.
But precisely that behavior can make Javier Milei win and we will be surprised once more on the night of November 19 when the official result of the scrutiny is known. It is well studied that electoral excess confidence can lead to the opposite result.
The Ecuadorian consultant Durán Barba, the man who made Mauricio Macri – with whom it seemed impossible to seduce an electorate – win the Presidency of the Nation in 2015, said in a TV program this week that it was precisely arrogance and the belief that they had already won the election that led Together for Change to be wrong regarding everything. Starting by a fierce internal who ended up choosing a terrible candidate for President, who might not sustain a speech that convinced an important fraction of the population.
According to Durán Barba, since the end of 2021 the people of Together for Change assumed that the next President would be from their party and then they began to do everything wrong: to fight to the death over who was going to stay in power, to distribute the positions (which they did not have, but which they assumed they would obtain in the election) and began to show that they were going to be ruthless in the very strong adjustment that they promised. The core of Patricia Bullrich’s campaign was to “exterminate” Kirchnerism (which no longer exists). It is a miracle that they got 23% of the votes.
Massa has been repeating that although everyone says otherwise, he has not won the election. Milei knows that it is very difficult for him because the majority of the country is very distrustful of his mental health and his ability to govern. The same thing, although exacerbated, happens abroad, since many comedy television programs show videos of Milei and wonder if Argentines will vote for such a character; and they laugh. Now both candidates are measured in their expectations. Those who are not moderates are the voters who believe that Massa has already won and are not going to vote or vote blank. This is how Milei will win.
The runoff is a fight once morest the other. We don’t choose who we want to win but rather who we want not to win. The one who causes the most rejection will lose the election and the other will be the new President.
In 14 days we will know if we were surprised once more (the one we didn’t believe wins) or in the end the people voted for the one that the majority today believes will be the new President. There are only 360 hours left until we reveal the mystery that will strongly impact our quality of life for years.
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