Milei shocks Argentina primaries: Peronism drops to 25.5%

Milei leads in 17 provinces without campaign funds or pollsters

Voters face 27 or 30 stacked ballots, choosing party precandidates rather than officials. This is Argentina's PASO system, launched in 2009, acting as a hidden first round. Provisional exit polls show Juntos por el Cambio with the largest aggregate vote, Sergio Massa as the top individual candidate, and Javier Milei, previously predicted to be third, delivering the shock of the day.

What are the PASO and why vote for candidates, not offices

Argentina holds all primary elections simultaneously, funded by the state. The law sets a 1.5% threshold to advance to general elections, distributing funds to participating parties. The result is a massive ballot with about 30 precandidates, many mere rubber stamps seeking public subsidies. The count took all night.

Provisional numbers: winners and survivors

Juntos por the Cambio, integrating the PRO, had the most aggregate votes. The internal race was between Patricia Bullrich and Buenos Aires Mayor Horacio Larreta. Sergio Massa, the current Economy Minister, led individually, competing against a negligible opponent, Juan Grabois.

The third figure defied all predictions. Javier Milei's Libertad Avanza party, with him as the sole candidate, far exceeded polls and media expectations. He had been written off after provincial elections where his candidates barely reached the finish line.

Why no official data on election night?

Counts are designed to withhold results until critical mass is reached. The rule requires approximately 20% of votes counted in large districts before publishing. These large districts, Buenos Aires City and Province, are the slowest. Until then, no official figures were available, though the rest of the country had counted its votes. Exit polls and table monitoring served as the only reference for hours.

Milei's result and the youth vote in poor neighborhoods

Exit polls and witness tables placed Milei high in Mendoza, Córdoba, Santa Fe, Formosa, and Tierra del Fuego. He also led in the Greater Buenos Aires area, a Peronist stronghold. The voting pattern was surprising: he did not win rich neighborhoods, where affluent voters favored Bullrich, but poorer ones, concentrating youth votes. The prevailing reading was a generation with no job prospects voting against those managing their present.

The map: 60% vs 25.5%

Combining Milei and Juntos por el Cambio under the right label, the provisional split left this bloc with 60% of the vote, against 25.5% for Peronism. This does not equate to an electoral result: only half the Chamber of Deputies and one-third of the Senate are renewed, so no winner would have a parliamentary majority alone. But it orders politics. Around 70% of voters voted outside Kirchnerism, changing the foundation for alliances and leadership transfers.

The day after: official dollar devalued 22% and blue at 800 pesos

The economic reaction came the same day. The Government devalued the official dollar by 22% and raised interest rates to stratospheric levels, around 110% annually. Informal market prices placed the blue dollar around 800 pesos, well above the 650-700 range, with monthly inflation of 7-8% pushing the floor up each month. Shops stopped restocking due to price uncertainty.

That Milei had nothing to do with the measure—a commitment to the IMF assumed by the Economy Ministry—did not prevent the market from discussing dollarization all night.

And here is the data that disorients any outside analyst: more than half of the Argentine economy is blue, undeclared. When the exchange rate jumps, the real impact doubles that suggested by official statistics. With these numbers on the table, the definitive count still had no date.