Provincial elections: a local election with national impact in which Javier Milei and Axel Kicillof have much more at stake than legislative positions.

In a nearly unprecedented day, the province of Buenos Aires, home to 40 percent of the national electorate, goes to the polls in separate elections from the national ones. Half of the two chambers of the provincial legislature, half of the deliberative councils of the 135 municipalities , and school counselors will be elected. Although the election is local, the two main players in the election—La Libertad Avanza and Peronism—are seeking to interpret the results in a national context .

President Javier Milei intends for the Buenos Aires elections to become a plebiscite on his administration , heralding the end of Kirchnerism. Governor Axel Kicillof , who, in a challenge to Cristina Kirchner, pushed for the split, also intends for the vote to be interpreted as a check on the national executive branch and to highlight his leadership in the run-up to 2027. The anticipation leading up to the election and the outcome could impact the volatile economy and the pressure on the dollar , which the government has sought to contain in the last two weeks.

The Libertarians— on a front with the PRO party almost swallowed up —are heading into the vote harassed by allegations of corruption, an economy in recession, and twenty consecutive defeats in the National Congress, as well as the corollary of the first rejection of a presidential veto in 22 years.

Peronism, united in the newly formed Fuerza Patria front, but torn apart by fierce internal conflicts, primarily between La Cámpora and Kicillof, is putting more seats at stake than any other party and is aiming to be the most popular party to secure a significant impact in October thanks to the traction of its mayors, especially in the metropolitan area. Fourteen of them will be candidates , although not all plan to take office, such as Juan José Mussi (Berazategui) and Mario Secco (Ensenada), among others.

The Libertarians are also fielding their most politically influential mayors: Diego Valenzuela, from Tres de Febrero, in the first round, and Guillermo Montenegro, from Mar del Plata , in the fifth round. Both have aspirations to run for governor in 2027. They have no shortage of internal competition. In the interior of Buenos Aires, there is a group of strong mayors who will try to assert their territorial power and challenge the predicted polarization.

Due to the Province's institutional engineering , the election will be divided into eight simultaneous elections , where the reading will not be unequivocal as in the October elections, when the list with the most votes wins.

The first section in the north and west of the metropolitan area—which has become the most populous of all— could tip the balance . Peronism is seeking to strengthen its stronghold in the third , in the south of the Greater Buenos Aires (GBA), where Cristina Kirchner had planned to run before being detained. The seat the former president had planned to occupy ultimately went to Vice Governor Verónica Magario , who will not leave her position alongside Axel Kicillof.

With the result in place, and depending on the difference between first and second place, a dispute over the interpretation of the election will begin. As in almost all of the 2025 provincial elections, the main unknown is how high the absenteeism rate will be and who will be most affected.

The last time the Province elected representatives on a date other than the national elections was in September 2003, when Felipe Solá was elected governor .

Although at the close of the day on Wednesday, the President spoke of a technical tie and immediately assured that he would paint the Province purple, in the United States, in front of investors who were listening to him, he suggested that the electoral split is detrimental to him .

"The provincial governors decided to separate local elections from national elections, with the idea of ​​discouraging voters from voting (...) This reduces the number of voters, allowing those who control the districts to send their clients to vote and thus win the elections," he said in Los Angeles.

In addition to LLA and Fuerza Patria, seven other fronts , along with provincial parties and neighborhood groups in some districts, are trying to break the polarization that, according to most stakeholders, polls, and consultants, has successfully established itself.

Radicalism allied itself with neighborhood parties and Peronist leaders such as Tigre Mayor Julio Zamora, in the first section, who broke with Kirchnerism to form the SOMOS front.

In the strategic fourth section, two PRO mayors, Pablo Petrecca (Junín) and María José Gentile (9 de Julio), close to the mayor of Buenos Aires, decided to play along with the new centrist coalition. Chivilcoy mayor Guillermo Britos is also seeking to strengthen the coalition, blessed by Juan Schiaretti from Córdoba and Facundo Manes, the Radical Party's candidate in the city in October.

In the second section, San Nicolás Mayor Santiago Passaglia and his brother Manuel—also a former mayor, like their father—formed their own coalition: Hechos . With a history in the Frente para la Victoria and JxC, they rejected the terms of an agreement with the PRO (Project for Victory) and the Libertarians. Macri's Javier Martínez, from Pergamino, joined the venture.

The Left and Workers' Front (FIT) once again rejected an electoral agreement with the New MAS, and the two leftist alternatives will run separately, while Marcelo Ramal's Workers' Policy will run in some sections.

María Eugenia Talerico, the former deputy head of the UIF under the Macri administration, launched her own label, Potencia, in collaboration with the MID (Mexican Institute of Development) and UNIR (Unir), to promote institutionalism.

There are also other spin-offs, such as the Avanza Libertad front, which José Luis Espert used in 2021 and is now seeking to attract voters from the LLA. It's not the only one; other brands will multiply, such as Unión y Libertad and Alianza U. Liberal, and the Frente Patriota Federal; Es con Vos; Construyendo Porvenir (Building the Future), the Libertarian Party; Tiempo de Todos (Time for All), and Valores Republicanos (Republican Values).

The Electoral Board of the Province of Buenos Aires announced that the provisional vote count data will be available starting at 9:00 p.m., or once 30 percent of the votes have been counted in each section.