Javier Milei played all or nothing in Santa Fe. And he won. He closed his national campaign in Rosario when the pollsters were talking about the election being decided “vote by vote.” This was also anticipated by the Fuerza Patria candidate, Caren Tepp. From there he supported Agustín Pellegrini, the young candidate they chose between Karina Milei and Romina Diez, the local representative of El Jefe.
Pellegrini barely managed to get an unexpected number: silently, supported by the purple mark, he obtained more than 40% of the votes.
In formal terms, it was a simple election for La Libertad Avanza: of the 9 seats that were put up for grabs, none of them belonged to it, therefore it was all about profit that came before it. But as he closed the campaign in Santa Fe, Milei needed to be supported by the results. And it was. La Libertad Avanza will add 4 deputies.
In the afternoon, when the elections had not yet closed, the provincial government admitted that its results had not been good. They talked about the “fear vote,” which had made Milei’s list grow in their polls in the 48 hours before the election. Maximiliano Pullaro put his vice-governor as a United Provinces candidate and she barely garnered 18% of the votes. Until the end of the count they were attentive to whether they added one or two deputies to Congress. There were two.
The emergence of Caren Tepp as head of Fuerza Patria’s list was a breath of fresh air for a fragmented Peronism. The Peronist alliance came second with more than 28% of the votes. He did what they expected and the PJ retained the 3 seats he put in play. What the elected representative should not ignore is that her role was electoral: she will not only be able to get the votes to lead the party at the provincial level, which suffers from the same divisions as the space at the national level. There are too many figures of weight and career that will enter the discussion from Monday.
The electoral hurricane of La Libertad Avanza did it again: it painted 16 of the 19 departments purple, even when a few months ago that same electorate had favored Pullaro in the provincial elections.
