Why Mexico’s election is more important than ever for the United States

Security, drugs, migration and economics: Here’s what Mexico’s massive Sunday vote means for the US.

With more than 98 million eligible voters, some 70,000 candidates and over 20,000 public offices being contested, Mexico’s general election on June 2 will be the largest in the country’s history. But it’s not just the massive scale of the event that makes it so important in the eyes of observers across the border in the United States. For the first time in history, the country looks set to elect its first female president. The two front-runners are both women – Claudia Sheinbaum, of the Morena party, who is backed by the governing coalition Sigamos Haciendo Historia, and Xóchitl Gálvez, who is backed by an coalition of opposition parties. The vote is also important because it falls in the same year as the US presidential election – something that happens only once every 12 years – and comes at a time of transition in the relationship between the two countries. “The years when all the US wanted was a safe and stable Mexico are over. Now it is also interested in a country with good public policy,” said Rafael Fernández de Castro Medina, director of the Center for US-Mexico Studies at the University of California, San Diego, pointing to the increasing number of Latinos in the US and the two countries’ growing ties. Here are a look at some of the biggest issues affecting the US-Mexico relationship that will be influenced by Sunday’s vote: