By Marcus Falcone
Argentine President Javier Milei won a clear victory on Sunday (October 26) over the opposition in the midterm elections, ensuring that his ambitious reform agenda will continue. With almost 99 percent of votes counted, Milei’s coalition, La Libertad Avanza (LLA), obtained 40.7 percent of the national vote, whereas the Peronists, who competed under the name of Fuerza Patria, received 31.7 percent. LLA carried 15 of 24 provinces.
Milei’s victory is significant for two reasons. First, he won by a large margin. Though most polls favored LLA, some still favored the Peronists. Additionally, virtually all polls indicated that Milei would lose the province of Buenos Aires, Peronism’s stronghold, which he ultimately won by a margin of half a percentage point. In fact, the province of Buenos Aires had been a source of trouble for Milei in September, when his coalition lost a state election 47 percent to 34 percent against the Peronists. This triggered a wave of pessimism in the markets, as well as a run against the peso, which should subside for now.
Second, Milei’s victory will enable him to withstand opposition pressure in Congress and, particularly, to uphold his vetoes of bills that threaten budget stability or of any bills that go against his reform agenda. The LLA coalition (which includes his ally PRO, the party of former President Mauricio Macri) is set to obtain 107 seats in the House, or about 42 percent of all seats. This is a much higher figure than the 86 seats (or 34 percent) that the government had set as a goal. Under Argentine law, vetoes can be overridden by Congress only with a majority of over two-thirds. At least until the next election in two years, the opposition will not be able to reach such a figure. In practice, the Peronists’ power has been significantly reduced.
Last night’s results, while not giving Milei a majority in Congress, will put his party and allies much closer to one. Besides being only 20 votes short of a majority in the House, Milei and his allies will now have 24 senators and thus control one-third of the Senate—exactly the same proportion as the Peronists. For Milei, this is unexpectedly good news. But for the Peronists, who held an absolute majority in the Senate from 1985 to 2021 and a near-majority until last night, this is catastrophic news.
Because of yesterday’s results, Milei will be in a stronger position to negotiate with Congress in implementing tax and labor reform, which he announced two weeks before the election. Although the opposition has recently tried to overturn some of his vetoes, there are still a few precedents of collaboration between the Milei government and non-Milei factions. Ley Bases, an omnibus bill named after classical liberal Juan Bautista Alberdi’s most famous book and passed in 2024, is one of them. The government has recently signaled it wants to further deregulate the economy through a second version of Ley Bases. Political compromise by some segments of the opposition is more probable today than before yesterday’s election, given the strong mandate Milei received. This is the case, for example, of the centrist Provincias Unidas, a party that obtained 7 percent of the vote on Sunday.
Finally, Sunday’s results also give Milei a chance to advance a broader reform agenda that includes dollarization, trade liberalization, the end of remaining capital controls, and the privatization of state-owned enterprises, among other measures. Those pro-growth reforms will only strengthen Milei’s now improved position to be reelected in 2027 and further solidify his market revolution.
Marcos Falcone is a policy analyst focusing on Latin America at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity. Made available by The Cato Institute.
