Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) and its allies should handily maintain their majority in the lower house of Congress in mid-term elections on June 6, an opinion poll showed Thursday.
The May 19-25 face-to-face survey of 1,530 Mexican residents by polling firm Buendia & Marquez for newspaper El Universal estimated the leftist MORENA would win some 228 seats in the 500-seat lower house, compared with the 253 it currently holds.
MORENA's allies, the Green Party and the Labor Party, were seen picking up 94 seats between them to ensure a large majority, giving the alliance 322 in total, the poll said.
That figure was the central estimate of a range of forecasts for the alliance that ranged from 295 to 345 seats, Buendia & Marquez said. The upper end of that spectrum would be sufficient to capture a two-thirds supermajority that could give Lopez Obrador enough votes to push through constitutional changes.
The lower house has control of the budget and Lopez Obrador has urged voters to make sure his alliance stays in charge.
MORENA originally won 191 seats when Lopez Obrador was elected in 2018, but defections and changes of allegiance increased the party's total. Along with its campaign allies, MORENA captured more than 300 seats in the last election.
The new poll's central forecast was that the centrist opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was on track to capture 62 seats in the lower house while the center-right opposition National Action Party was seen winning 79.
The center-left opposition Party of the Democratic Revolution was seen picking up just 20 seats.
The remaining seats were expected to be won by Movimiento Ciudadano, a small party.
(Reporting by Raul Cortes and Dave Graham, writing by Laura Gottesdiener; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
