A new electoral survey on voting intentions for the second round of the presidential elections in Chile indicates an advantage for José Antonio Kast against Jeannette Jara.
The survey by Latam Pulse, a joint initiative between AtlasIntel and Bloomberg, shows that the ultra-rightist has 56.9% of voting intentions, against 35% for the communist.
Furthermore, 8.1% of those interviewed stated that they will vote blank, cancel it or still don’t know who to vote for.
The Chileans
If only valid votes are considered, Kast has 61.9% of intentions, against 38.1% for Jara.
The numbers demonstrate a growing trend for Kast compared to the October survey, when he had 47% of intentions in a potential second round against the former Minister of Labor.
In Jara’s case, the trend is downward, as she had registered 39% of intentions in the last survey.
The survey also asked Chileans whether they approve or disapprove of the performance of the current president, Gabriel Boric. The result was the following:
Approval of Chilean President Gabriel Boric:
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Disapprove: 63.9%
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Approve: 34.2%
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I don’t know: 1.9%
Asked about the most important problems for Chile at the moment, voters highlighted: corruption (57,5%), insecurity/crime/drug trafficking (48,1%), high prices and inflation (27%), impunity and judicial system (26,3%) e migration (26%).
The survey virtually interviewed 9,012 Chilean adults between November 22nd and 27th. The margin of error is plus or minus 1.1 percentage points and the confidence level is 95%.
Meet the two candidates in Chile’s second round
José Antonio Kast
which has already run twice for President of Chile, is recovering in the polls with a hard-line platform against crime, appearing in second place in the surveys.
After a presidential campaign in 2017 in which he received just 8% of the vote, Kast reached the second round in 2021, but lost to the current left-wing president, Gabriel Boric.
A descendant of German immigrants who arrived in Chile in the 1950s, Kast previously belonged to the right-wing Independent Democratic Union party and was deputy for District 30 from 2002 to 2014. The lawyer and politician later represented District 24 from 2014 to 2018.
For this campaign, he moderated his speech, avoiding controversial topics such as his previous support for Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, and focused on themes of law and order.
Kast’s political platform, which includes stricter immigration measures and proposals such as the construction of a ditch to contain illegal entry into the country, has been compared to that of figures such as Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
His direct communication style and staunch conservatism have reinforced his popularity among Chile’s right-wing voters.
Jeannette Jara
Jeannette Jara, 51, is from the government coalition. She is the first since the return of democracy to the country and enters the presidential election as the favorite in most opinion polls.
Throughout his campaign, Jara promised to deepen social reforms, strengthen public security without resorting to militarization and combat organized crime and drug trafficking.
She promised to maintain the social welfare policies implemented during the government, while expanding pensions and improving access to affordable housing.
Jara grew up in a working-class neighborhood in the Chilean capital, Santiago, and is the oldest of five siblings.
At the age of 14, she joined the Communist Youth and stood out as an important student and social leader. She was the first in her family to graduate from university, obtaining a degree in Public Administration from the University of Santiago and later studying Law at the Central University of Chile.
During former president Michelle Bachelet’s second term, Jara served as Undersecretary of Social Security (2016–2018).
She returned to the government in 2022 as Minister of Labor and Social Security, under the presidency of Boric, where she implemented historic reforms: a long-stalled pension reform, the reduction of working hours from 45 to 40 hours per week and the increase in the minimum wage from US$350 to US$530, one of the highest in Latin America.
Jara left his ministerial post to launch his campaign, winning the ruling coalition’s primaries with 60% of the vote.
Since then, she has sought to distance herself from radical rhetoric, positioning herself as a pragmatic leftist focused on security and social equity.
If elected, she would become Chile’s first communist president in the democratic era.
