Martina Jaureguy 
In a substantial shift from the primary election results, eight provinces flipped in favor of the ruling coalition Unión por la Patria (UxP)’s Sergio Massa in Sunday’s general election. Six had previously voted for the ultra-right La Libertad Avanza (LLA)’s Javier Milei and two for the opposition bloc Juntos por el Cambio (JxC).
The trend influenced Sunday’s dramatic turn of events, with Massa unexpectedly winning the general elections in 13 out of 23 provinces when UxP had only won five in the primaries. Overall, the economy minister got votes from 36.7% of the electorate while Milei was left in second place with 30% of the vote — LLA only consolidated 10 out of the 16 provinces it had won in the primaries.
“Massa had improved results where Milei had done better in the PASO [primaries], particularly in the North and Patagonia regions, which traditionally vote for Peronism,” said Daniel Schteingart, a sociologist from the investigations center Fundar in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
According to Schteingart, JxC saw a larger loss of votes in the provinces where it had won more comfortably in the primaries — support in the coalition’s traditional stronghold Buenos Aires City slumped by almost 8%.
The sociologist put forward an initial conclusion that “part of hard-core JxC voters went to LLA,” while there seems to be a sector of Peronist voters who didn’t vote during the primaries but did show up for Sunday’s general elections.
Voter turnout was 77.6%, while in the primaries it had been 69.6%. This means around three million people who didn’t vote in the primaries went to the ballot boxes on Sunday.
UxP, which had finished third in the primaries, is now the leading coalition ahead of the November 19 run-off.
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Across the provinces
UxP retained support from Catamarca, Chaco, Santiago del Estero, Formosa and Buenos Aires province. The latter is the district with the highest percentage out of the electoral roll: 37% of voters live in Buenos Aires province, and Governor Axel Kicillof was re-elected with 44.9% of the vote.
Provinces that turned away from LLA in favor of UxP were La Rioja, Tucumán, La Pampa, Río Negro, Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego. Tucumán was particularly surprising since Milei had won with 36% in the primaries — with UxP second with 32.8% — but on Sunday Massa got almost 45% of the vote.
Entre Ríos and Corrientes, where JxC had won in the primaries, also voted for Massa. However, both provinces have JxC governors, with Entre Ríos electing former Interior Minister Rogelio Frigerio as governor on Sunday while Corrientes, which will not hold gubernatorial elections this year, is run by Gustavo Valdés.
Despite losing territory across the country generally, JxC is set to have nine governors starting December 10 — up from three plus Buenos Aires City, which will see its own UxP-JxC run-off on November 19.
In Santiago del Estero and Formosa UxP surpassed the high percentages it had gotten in the primaries with landslide victories of 65.5% and 52.3% respectively.
While LLA had been the most voted coalition in 16 provinces in the primaries, it consolidated 10 of those victories on Sunday: Jujuy, Salta, Misiones, San Juan, Mendoza, Neuquén, San Luis, Córdoba, Santa Fe and Chubut. Milei peaked in San Luis, with 43.3%, although in the primaries his coalition had garnered 47.8%. In Salta, where Milei won with almost 50% in the primaries, he now got 40.4%.
JxC, on the other hand, only managed to retain support in Buenos Aires City. Bullrich was the most-voted candidate with 41.2% compared to 48.3% in the primaries.
The anti-Kirchnerist Peronist Juan Schiaretti of Hacemos por Nuestro País secured 29% of the vote in Córdoba — however, his coalition is not included on this map because he received under 7% of the vote nationally.
