The Teen Zine 

On October 24, 2027, Argentina will hold a presidential election with no clear favorite. Javier
Milei, the libertarian outsider elected in 2023 on a promise to dismantle the political establishment,
intends to seek re-election. To avoid a runoff, a candidate needs either 45% of the vote or 40% with a
10-point lead — a bar Milei's own polling numbers put in serious doubt. Depending on the pollster, he
either leads Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof by double digits or sits in a statistical tie with
him. That spread isn't noise; it reflects a race still being decided by forces in motion. Analysts have
described the dynamic as an "asymmetric competition" — Milei's support is eroding, but no opposition
figure has yet turned that discontent into a real alternative.
For me, this isn't just an abstract forecasting question. In Argentina, voting becomes compulsory
at 18, which means I will be casting a ballot in this election. That makes the outcome feel less like a
distant news story and more like a decision I'll personally take part in — and I'm far from alone. Young,
first-time voters are one of the least predictable blocs in any Argentine election, and are
disproportionately shaped by economic conditions like job prospects and rent, so they can swing
meaningfully depending on how the next year unfolds. It's tempting to assume this is simply a function
of age — that younger voters are less loyal because they haven't yet settled into a party. But volatility in
Argentina doesn't map neatly onto age; it maps onto party. A 2025 UBA study found Peronist voters far
more loyal (67% don't switch) than supporters of La Libertad Avanza (84% switch) or Juntos por el
Cambio (74% switch). That means the youth vote and the non-Peronist vote are, in a sense, two
overlapping sources of the same uncertainty — both up for grabs in a way the Peronist base generally
isn't.
So what will actually decide this election? Three forces, I'll argue: the economy, the durability of
Milei's own coalition, and the opposition's ability to unite against him.
Milei's entire political project rests on a single claim: that shock therapy would end Argentina's
chronic inflation crisis and, eventually, translate into real prosperity. The headline numbers support that
claim. Annual inflation, which stood at 211% when Milei took office in December 2023, had fallen to
roughly 33% by early 2026 — one of the fastest disinflation episodes in recent economic history. GDP
grew 4.4% in 2025, with forecasts of 3-4% growth for 2026, aided by a boom in Vaca Muerta energy
exports that has turned Argentina into a net energy exporter for the first time in decades. Poverty, which
spiked to 52.9% in the first half of 2024 as the initial devaluation shock hit household budgets, fell to
28.2% by the second half of 2025 — the lowest level since 2018.
But the picture is less settled than the headline figures suggest. The Catholic University of
Argentina has warned that roughly three-quarters of the measured poverty decline may be a statistical
artifact of slowing monthly inflation rather than genuine income growth. More tellingly, average formal
private-sector wages in June 2026 still bought less than they did in November 2023 — meaning that
even as poverty statistics improve on paper, many households have not yet felt a real recovery in their
purchasing power. This gap between macroeconomic indicators and lived experience shows up directly

in public opinion: in one 2026 survey, only 26% of respondents wanted Milei's economic policies to
continue largely unchanged, while 37% wanted a mix of continuity and change and 33% wanted most
of it reversed — meaning roughly seven in ten Argentines want some kind of course correction, even
after two years of falling inflation.
The disinflation and poverty figures above didn't happen in a vacuum; they were the direct
product of an aggressive fiscal adjustment. Milei's government achieved a genuine financial surplus in
2024 and 2025 — something Argentina had not managed in over a century — largely through cuts to
pensions, public employment, provincial transfers, and energy and transport subsidies. Informality in
the labor market has also crept upward, reaching 43% of employment by the end of 2025, according to
INDEC data. For the election, this matters because these aren't abstract line items: pension cuts and
subsidy removals hit specific, identifiable constituencies — retirees, public employees, utility customers
— who are more likely to vote on that grievance directly than on the national inflation average. A
candidate who can credibly promise to reverse a specific cut may out-perform one who simply
campaigns on aggregate statistics.
A second point of vulnerability lies in the currency regime itself. Milei's government spent much
of 2025 gradually dismantling the cepo — the currency controls in place since 2011 — lifting most
restrictions for individuals in April 2025 while retaining significant limits on corporate access to foreign
currency. The government has also opted to maintain a currency band system through at least 2027,
rather than moving to a fully free float. This is politically significant timing: a currency crisis or sharp
devaluation in the months immediately preceding the election would almost certainly dominate the
campaign the way the 2024 devaluation shock dominated Milei's first year in office — meaning the
exchange rate isn't just a technical policy question, it's a landmine that could define the election's final
narrative regardless of how the broader economy is performing. Notably, some government supporters
worry openly that anxiety over a possible 2027 loss — and a reversal of reforms — is itself now shaping
investor and policy behavior, a feedback loop where fear of the election outcome affects the economy
that will determine that same outcome.
Underlying all of this is Argentina's continuing relationship with the IMF, whose $20 billion
program gives the government both support and constraints. In May 2026, the IMF approved the
program's second review, unlocking a $1 billion disbursement and crediting fiscal, labor, and trade
reforms — but the Fund's own optimistic projections (7.2% unemployment, 25% inflation for 2026) have
already been outpaced by reality: unemployment rose to 7.8% in early 2026, with joblessness in
Greater Buenos Aires running even higher, at 8.7%. This is the clearest link back to the election of any
economic indicator here: unemployment is felt immediately and personally in a way aggregate GDP
growth is not, and it is concentrated precisely in the province that will most likely decide the presidential
race. If joblessness continues rising through 2027, it may do more electoral damage to Milei than
inflation figures — even ones that look good on paper.
This tension is likely to be decisive. If disinflation continues and, crucially, if it finally reaches
household wages and employment before October 2027, Milei's economic argument becomes difficult
for any opponent to counter. But if growth remains concentrated in energy exports and financial
indicators while ordinary wages stagnate, the gap between "the economy is recovering" and "my life
hasn't gotten better" will remain the opposition's most obvious opening — regardless of who ends up

representing it. But an economic opening only translates into votes if Milei's own coalition is vulnerable
enough to let it through — and on that question, 2026 supplied a direct test.
Milei's original appeal rested heavily on the promise that he was categorically different from
Argentina's political class — an outsider who would never behave like the entrenched elite he railed
against. That claim took a direct hit in 2026. Manuel Adorni, Milei's spokesperson-turned-Chief of
Cabinet and one of his closest allies, resigned in June 2026 after months of scrutiny over undeclared
assets, admitting he had omitted roughly $500,000 from his financial disclosures. A federal
investigation into illicit enrichment followed, including a court order lifting Adorni's bank secrecy and
testimony from a notary about how he financed two property purchases. For a government whose core
brand was moral rupture with the establishment, a corruption scandal inside the president's own inner
circle is more damaging than an equivalent scandal would be for a conventional politician — it doesn't
just cost Milei a minister, it undercuts the specific promise that got him elected in the first place.
This raises a central question: how much of La Libertad Avanza's support depends on Milei
personally, versus the broader libertarian policy platform he represents? The answer matters because it
determines whether a 2027 setback for Milei is necessarily a setback for his movement. There is some
evidence the coalition can survive a change in leading personnel — in 2025, LLA's strong midterm
showing came with several key figures beyond Milei himself gaining prominence, including his sister
and campaign strategist Karina Milei, and Diego Santilli, who was elevated to Chief of Cabinet after
Adorni's resignation and is now seen internally as the "natural candidate" to run for governor of Buenos
Aires Province in 2027. That a scandal-driven succession happened smoothly, without fracturing the
party, suggests LLA has begun developing a bench beyond its founder — though it is a very different
question whether that bench could replace Milei at the top of a presidential ticket.

Milei's durability also depends on whether his coalition can expand rather than merely survive.
Talks between LLA and Mauricio Macri's PRO party resumed in mid-2026, aimed at a national alliance
for 2027, with polling from the consultancy Escenarios suggesting PRO's own voter base favors a joint
ticket combining Milei's leadership with PRO's more traditional governing experience. By late August
2026, the two parties reportedly reached an initial understanding: PRO would support Milei's re-election
bid nationally, while LLA would avoid running competing candidates in PRO-governed provinces. This is
a meaningful shift from 2023, when Milei explicitly ruled out any alliance with Macri's broader coalition,
dismissing parts of it as "socialists with good manners." That reversal illustrates a broader dynamic
worth naming directly: Milei's electoral coalition may prove more durable not because it is ideologically
fixed, but because it has shown a willingness to make exactly the kind of pragmatic alliances Milei once
campaigned against.
The clearest empirical test of whether LLA's support depends on Milei personally comes from a
May 2026 poll that measured voting intention for Milei, Bullrich, and Macri separately. Milei polled at
31.4%, while Patricia Bullrich — his own Senate bloc leader — polled higher, at 32.4%, in what the
pollster explicitly described as evidence of a "Mileísmo sin Milei," libertarian support that could survive
without its founder on the ballot. Notably, "would never vote for" numbers were nearly identical across
all three figures (Milei 57.2%, Macri 56.8%, Bullrich 56.4%), suggesting Bullrich isn't simply more
broadly likeable — she draws from the same polarized base Milei does, just without his specific
negatives. A separate poll found that pairing Milei with Bullrich as a hypothetical ticket earned 59.3%

support for "continuity of the government," far ahead of alternative running mates like Martín Menem or
Sandra Pettovello. Taken together, this is the strongest evidence so far that the answer to "does it have
to be Milei" may genuinely be no — at least for the libertarian coalition's core vote.
That same strength creates friction. Bullrich has stated directly that she wants to be president
after a Milei re-election, though she has been careful to frame this as contingent on "how the team that
accompanies Milei is formed," not a personal ambition. That caution reflects a real internal dynamic:
reporting indicates Karina Milei, the president's sister and chief political strategist, does not see Bullrich
as an ally so much as a rival for influence, and reportedly prefers a more personally loyal figure like
Martín Menem in the eventual vice-presidential slot. This tension matters for the 2027 outcome in a
specific way — a coalition that has found a genuinely popular successor to its founder faces a new risk
it didn't have when Milei was its only viable option: the risk of internal succession conflict distracting
from, or even undermining, the campaign against a unified external opponent. In that sense, the
durability of Milei's coalition may depend less on whether it can survive without him, and more on
whether it can manage the ambition of the people capable of replacing him.
Taken together, these developments suggest Milei's coalition is proving more durable than his
own approval rating — surviving a corruption scandal, absorbing a new alliance with PRO, and even
discovering a popular potential successor in Bullrich. But durability under normal conditions is not the
same as durability under stress: the real test of how solid this coalition is will come if the economic and
political headwinds examined so far converge into a genuine crisis of confidence in Milei's project.
If Milei's coalition is going to break, the data suggests it will break over the economy specifically,
not personality or scandal. A QSocial analysis found that voting intention for Milei tracks almost exactly
with public tolerance for continued austerity: support started at 35% in October 2025, rose to a peak of
45% in December 2025-January 2026, then collapsed alongside "social patience" for the adjustment to
31% by July 2026. The firm calculated that for every point tolerance for austerity drops, Milei's vote
share falls by roughly 0.9 points. This is a genuinely important finding for this essay's thesis: it suggests
that the succession dynamics and coalition-building discussed above, however significant, are
secondary to a much simpler mechanism — as long as households feel the adjustment is working,
Milei's coalition holds; the moment that patience runs out, support erodes almost mechanically.
That erosion is not merely hypothetical. By August 2026, Milei's approval had fallen more than
13 points since February, with disapproval reaching 58.8%. Critically, the discontent is not confined to
swing voters: one analysis found that nearly 30% of people who voted for Milei in 2023 now hold a
negative view of him, rising to 37% among voters who had specifically supported Bullrich, with the
erosion driven overwhelmingly by economic frustration rather than any single scandal. Among young
voters — the demographic this essay's introduction identified as especially volatile — the shift is
sharper still: in some surveyed districts, 42% of 2023 Milei voters said they would not vote for him
again, and a hypothetical election held today would see 67% of young respondents backing Peronism
against just 25% for LLA. If disaffection concentrates disproportionately among the young and the
previously loyal, that is a genuine structural risk to Milei's 2027 coalition, not just background noise.
Here, however, is the finding that most complicates a simple "Milei is losing, so the opposition is
winning" narrative. Voters leaving Milei's coalition are not migrating to Kicillof or any other Peronist
figure — pollsters describe a "psychological border" that prevents direct vote transfer between the two
poles of Argentina's political divide. Instead, disaffected voters are moving to blank ballots or

abstention: in one hypothetical runoff scenario, blank votes and undecided voters together reached
29.4% — described by the pollster as a "pool of discontent" with no candidate currently able to claim it.
This is the single most important data point for testing this section's premise. It means the anti-Mileism
scenario, as currently measured, would not automatically produce a Peronist victory; it could just as
easily produce a historically fragmented, low-legitimacy result, with whichever candidate can first reach
that pool of blank/undecided voters gaining a decisive edge.
Put together, the conditions for Milei's coalition genuinely fracturing by 2027 are narrower than
headline disapproval numbers suggest. It is not enough for approval to fall — that has already
happened, repeatedly, without producing an opposition breakthrough. What would be required is a
credible opposition figure capable of crossing the psychological border separating the government's
disaffected voters from Peronism specifically, something no candidate has yet managed as of
mid-2026. That reframes this essay's second force: the real threat to Milei's re-election may not be the
erosion of his coalition on its own, but the arrival of a specific opposition figure able to convert that
erosion into votes — which is exactly the question the opposition's own internal divisions will determine.
While the previous sections showed that Milei's coalition, for all its wear, has found ways to
expand and adapt, the opposition begins from the opposite pattern: Peronism, competing under the
label Fuerza Patria, remains divided into three distinct currents heading into 2027 — Buenos Aires
Province Governor Axel Kicillof's provincial power base, a group of interior governors pursuing
pragmatic cooperation with the national government in exchange for funding, and figures from outside
traditional politics being floated as fresh alternatives. The clearest sign of how deep this split runs came
in September 2026, when Kicillof formally launched his own national political movement, the
Movimiento Derecho al Futuro, in a venue historically associated with Kirchnerism — a move widely
interpreted as a definitive break from Cristina Kirchner's wing of the party rather than a step toward
unity.
At the center of the split is a genuine disagreement over what kind of candidacy Peronism
should offer. Kicillof's camp argues that a viable presidential run needs full autonomy to build its own
teams and platform, free from Kirchnerist structures; Cristina Kirchner's wing, by contrast, wants to
retain control over candidate lists and the movement's overall direction. This is not simply personal
rivalry — Cristina has publicly warned that continued fragmentation could turn what should be a
two-way race against Milei into a contest between four separate opposition spaces, which would make
it far harder for any single Peronist candidate to reach a runoff. Compounding the problem is Cristina
Kirchner's own legal situation, which makes her personal candidacy symbolically important to hardline
factions of La Cámpora but practically unworkable — a reminder that Peronism's most nationally
recognized figure may be unable to run at all.
A third figure complicates the picture further. Former economy minister Sergio Massa has
recently re-emerged publicly, positioning himself as a unifying figure capable of containing hardline
Kirchnerism while remaining palatable to non-Kirchnerist voters who reject La Cámpora's style of
leadership. Massa's calculation reflects a deeper strategic reality: Peronism's leadership acknowledges
that a repeat of the 2003 scenario — where two Peronist candidates ran against each other in the first
round, with the stronger one advancing to a nearly uncontested runoff — is far too risky against a Milei
who, even in his weakest recent polling, retains a floor of roughly 35 points. Some of Cristina Kirchner's

own allies concede that Kicillof is currently their best-performing potential candidate, even though she
does not personally favor him.
Internal Peronist rivalry is not merely a governance curiosity; it has direct electoral
consequences. A divided opposition field splits the anti-Milei vote across multiple ballot lines in the first
round, making it harder for any single candidate to reach the runoff threshold — precisely the dynamic
Cristina Kirchner herself has warned against. It also means that Milei's government, whose "strategy
depends heavily on the opposition's permanent fragmentation," as one analysis put it, has a direct
political interest in that fragmentation continuing, and little incentive to help resolve it. Recall that a
meaningful share of disaffected Milei voters are not moving toward Peronism but toward blank ballots
— that "pool of discontent" is only capturable by an opposition that can present itself as a single,
credible alternative. As it stands in 2026, Peronism has not yet solved that problem, and every month it
remains unresolved is a month in which Milei's most significant vulnerability goes unclaimed.
Buenos Aires Province is Argentina's largest electoral district by a wide margin, with over 13
million registered voters — a scale that makes it, in practice, a second national election happening
inside the real one. It is also the province where the two dynamics examined so far collide directly:
Milei's coalition-building efforts under Diego Santilli, and Peronism's still-unresolved leadership question
under Kicillof. How that collision resolves is likely to be the clearest single indicator of the national
result.
On raw territorial strength, Kicillof currently has a clear advantage. An August 2026 CB Global
Data poll found he leads Milei in positive image in 21 of the province's 24 municipalities, with Milei
ahead only in San Isidro, Vicente López, and Tigre — traditionally the wealthiest, most anti-Peronist
districts. This actually represents Milei gaining ground rather than losing it: in a February 2026
measurement by the same firm, Milei led in only four municipalities, meaning his territorial position
modestly improved over the following six months even as his national approval was falling — a
reminder that provincial and national trends don't always move in lockstep. In the conurbano's largest,
most working-class districts — Florencio Varela, La Matanza, and Almirante Brown — Kicillof's
numbers remain especially dominant, at or above 50%.
Because Kicillof cannot run for a third consecutive term as governor, the 2027 gubernatorial
race is a genuinely open contest, and polling on it captures the province's mood more precisely than
head-to-head Milei-Kicillof matchups. A July 2026 survey by La Tintorería projected Peronism winning
the governorship with 44.7% against LLA's 37.5% after allocating undecided voters — a real but not
overwhelming margin. On the LLA side, Diego Santilli has emerged as an overwhelming frontrunner for
the nomination, capturing roughly 73% of preference among right-of-center primary voters, though the
same report cautions that his dominance alone doesn't solve the broader challenge facing the
province's right: building a coalition wide enough to include the UCR's territorial network and whatever
strategy PRO ultimately adopts under Macri. On the Peronist side, potential successors to Kicillof —
such as La Plata mayor Julio Alak or Pilar mayor Federico Achával — remain far less nationally known,
which could matter if the province's race becomes as much about individual candidates as about party
brand.
Buenos Aires Province therefore functions as a leading indicator for the national race on two
separate axes. First, it is the clearest real-world test of whether Santilli — the coalition-building,
alliance-brokering figure at the center of Milei's PRO alliance — can convert LLA's structural gains into

actual votes at scale, a genuine test of "does it have to be Milei" one province at a time. Second, it is
the place where Peronism's three-way internal fragmentation either gets resolved into a single
competitive ticket or continues to cost the movement ground it should otherwise be gaining given Milei's
national erosion. If Kicillof's forces can convert their municipal-level dominance into a comfortable
statewide win, that signals a Peronist national campaign has a strong territorial base to build from. If
LLA closes that gap significantly, it suggests Milei's coalition may be more durable at the ballot box than
his personal approval numbers alone would predict — precisely the tension this essay has been
tracking throughout.
Returning to this essay's opening question — what will determine the outcome of Argentina's
2027 election — the evidence points to three forces, but not three of equal weight.
The economy is the primary determinant. Argentina's economic recovery, however real by
headline measures, has not yet consistently reached household wages, employment, or the everyday
experience of ordinary Argentines. More tellingly, voting intention for Milei tracks almost mechanically
with public tolerance for continued austerity, with each point of eroding patience costing him roughly a
point of support. This is the closest thing this essay found to a law-like relationship in Argentine politics,
and it suggests that no amount of coalition management or opposition dysfunction will save Milei if
households do not feel materially better off by October 2027 — nor will a genuinely felt recovery leave
much room for an opposition victory, however unified.
The durability of Milei's coalition is the second-most important factor, and more resilient than
expected. Despite the Adorni corruption scandal, fluctuating approval ratings, and the ordinary friction
of an alliance with PRO, LLA has shown a genuine capacity to expand and adapt — most strikingly in
the finding that Patricia Bullrich may already poll as well as, or better than, Milei himself among the
coalition's core voters. This matters because the biggest risk to Milei's political project is no longer
simply whether the coalition can survive without him, which the evidence suggests it likely can, but
whether internal succession ambitions can be managed without fracturing the alliance from within.
The opposition's ability to unite ranks third — not because it doesn't matter, but because the
evidence suggests unity alone would not be sufficient. Peronism remains caught in a genuine three-way
internal division between Kicillof, Kirchnerism, and Massa, one serious enough that Cristina Kirchner
herself has warned it could turn a two-way race into a four-way fragmentation. Yet the most important
finding on this front complicates any simple "opposition unity would guarantee victory" narrative: voters
currently leaving Milei's coalition are not migrating to Kicillof or any Peronist figure — they are migrating
to blank ballots and undecided columns, separated from Peronism by what pollsters call a
"psychological border." A unified Peronist ticket is very likely necessary for defeating Milei in 2027. It is
not, on current evidence, obviously sufficient.
Putting the three together: the most probable path to a Milei defeat is not simply "the economy
worsens" or "the opposition unites" in isolation, but a compounding of both — continued economic
disillusionment that erodes his coalition's floor, combined with an opposition finally capable of crossing
that psychological border and converting disaffected libertarian voters, rather than merely consolidating
its own existing base. Absent that combination, Milei's most likely path to re-election runs not through a
fully "felt" recovery, which appears unlikely by 2027, but through a merely adequate one — good
enough to hold his coalition's floor while Peronism remains too internally divided, or too unable to reach
beyond its own base, to fully capitalize on his weakness.

For young, first-time voters like myself, this is a genuinely open question rather than a foregone
conclusion — and that, more than any single indicator examined in this essay, is what makes 2027 worth watching closely.