Updated Sunday 6:30 p.m. 

Polls for Argentina’s 2025 national legislative elections closed on Sunday at 6 p.m. as the country gears up to partially renew both houses of Congress. At 6 p.m., 66% of the electorate had cast their ballots. However, the figure is not definitive, as people were still voting at some polling stations, according to the national electoral chamber. First results are expected by 9 p.m.

See the latest: Argentina 2025 midterms: LLA gets landslide win, reaches key number of Congress seats

If voter turnout remains at those numbers after all polling stations stop receiving last-minute voters, it would be the lowest since 1983, when democracy was reinstated in Argentina.

Interior Minister Lisandro Catalán said that they expected to add more votes from provinces where they also had local elections and could take longer to finish voting.

Catalán said that the first time implementing the single paper ballot system in a national election was “a success” and described it as “a more agile, modern and transparent voting system.” He added that there were no reports of incidents or issues during voting.

President Javier Milei, former President Mauricio Macri, and Buenos Aires province Governor Axel Kicillof, as well as lead candidates for BA province Diego Santilli (La Libertad Avanza) and Jorge Taiana (Fuerza Patria), cast their ballots earlier on Sunday amid press presence and supporters. They will await for the results at their parties’ headquarters.

These midterms will be a pivotal moment for President Javier Milei and his La Libertad Avanza (LLA) party. Since taking office in December 2023, Milei has made it clear that gaining legislative muscle was necessary to pass reforms on issues such as labor law and pensions. Recent defeats in Congress are mounting pressure on the libertarians to strengthen their hand. 

The Peronist opposition, meanwhile, hopes a good election will help them to stymie Milei’s agenda — but with the most seats up for renewal, it is the most politically exposed party.

There are currently seven LLA senators and 37 deputies. Senators serve for six years, and deputies serve for four years. On Sunday, voters will renew a third of senators (24 out of 72) and half of deputies (127 out of 257). Catamarca, La Rioja, Mendoza, and Santiago del Estero provinces will also hold local elections. 

The government’s congressional minority has forced it to rely on allies like PRO and other political parties willing to provide critical backing to pass laws and insulate presidential vetoes. That strategy, however, has been crumbling in 2025, and the Milei administration has found itself on the losing side of congressional battles that it was winning. 

As a young party, LLA is bound to come out of the midterms with more lawmakers. The senatorial seats up for renewal are from 2019, before the Libertarian Party formally existed. This raises the question of how many deputies and senators the government would need to win to claim victory. 

Peronism, on the other hand, heads into the election hoping to maintain its legislative presence, since it is the party with the most seats up for renewal (46 out of 98 deputies and 13 out of 24 senators). They stand to gain the most from the government’s mistakes, as a faltering economy and a series of corruption scandals have turned the contest into a referendum on the government. 

LLA won in the Buenos Aires City local elections in May, but has performed poorly in every other province, culminating in a catastrophic 14-point defeat in Buenos Aires province in September that spooked LLA organizers and financial markets alike. 

Local elections in four provinces 

Although 10 provinces held local elections separately from the national midterms (a process known as desdoblamiento), four held local elections on Sunday. While Mendoza and Catamarca will partially renew both local chambers, La Rioja only voted for deputies. Santiago del Estero will renew its governor and 40 local deputy seats.