On July 1, 2012, a record number of Mexican voters headed to the polls to elect a president who will serve a six-year term beginning on December 1, 2012. All 128 seats in the Mexican Senate and 500 seats in the lower house of congress, known as the Chamber of Deputies, were also up for election. Senators will serve six-year terms and deputies will serve three-year terms that began on September 1, 2012. Elections for local and state offices took place in 14 states (including Mexico City's Federal District), six of which held gubernatorial elections. Voters in the Federal District selected a head of government (mayor). Mexico does not permit consecutive reelection for any political office. Thus, the results of these elections could lead to shifts in Mexico's domestic and foreign policy priorities and have implications for U.S.-Mexican relations. Twelve years after losing the presidency for the first time in 71 years, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) won the presidential election (see Figure 1 ), a plurality of seats in the Senate (see Figure 2 ) and Chamber of Deputies (see Figure 3 ), and gubernatorial elections in Chiapas, Jalisco, and Yucatán (see Figure 4 ). Despite these victories, PRI/Green Ecological Party (PVEM) candidate Enrique Peña Nieto won by a relatively narrow margin over Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the leftist coalition led by the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), and the PRI/PVEM failed to capture a simple majority in either chamber of the congress. In addition to López Obrador's second-place finish in the presidential contest, the PRD and its allies picked up enough seats to become the second-largest force in the Chamber of Deputies, won the governorships of Morelos and Tabasco, and retained control of the mayoralty of the Federal District. The conservative National Action Party (PAN) lost the presidency, two gubernatorial contests, and seats in the Chamber of Deputies, but picked up senate seats and retained the governorship of Guanajuato. For an analysis of the election results, see " Election Results " below. This report provides background information on the parties and presidential candidates that competed in Mexico's 2012 elections, analyzes the election results, and discusses some potential implications of those results for U.S.-Mexican relations in the areas of security cooperation, economic integration, and energy policy. The July 1, 2012, elections occurred at a time when Mexico faced significant economic and security challenges and presidential power was increasingly constrained by a more active congress and Supreme Court, powerful governors, and a vocal civil society. Analysts maintain that Mexico has experienced modest economic growth punctuated by a severe economic crisis (in 2009) and a growing security crisis under two successive PAN administrations. Often, these crises have overshadowed the policy achievements of those governments. As a result, economic and security issues figured as top concerns among the Mexican electorate. The major presidential candidates all stressed the importance of boosting job creation and improving public security in Mexico, with many arguing that an effective way to reduce the influence of criminal groups is by creating jobs. However, voters appeared to believe that the PRI may be best equipped to restore order and restart economic growth, despite uncertainty about how the party's return to power might impact Mexican democracy given its reputation for corruption and undemocratic practices. Since even before the campaign officially began on March 30, 2012, Enrique Peña Nieto of the PRI/PVEM had maintained a double-digit lead in most polls over Josefina Vázquez Mota of the PAN, López Obrador of the coalition led by the PRD, and Gabriel Quadri of the National Alliance Party (PANAL). Polling for the legislative elections followed the same trajectory as the presidential race, with a plurality of voters favoring PRI candidates followed by the PRD-led coalition, the PAN, and then the PANAL. While the polls correctly captured López Obrador overtaking Vázquez Mota as the second-most popular candidate by late May 2012, they generally underestimated the level of popular support for his candidacy. López Obrador benefitted from the YoSoy132 (I am 132) student protest movement that began in Mexico City in mid-May and organized itself through social media. Although the movement largely intended to have some of the youth voters' concerns—such as perceived media bias—heard by all of the candidates, many of its supporters also expressed antipathy for the PRI. Mexico has three major political parties—the PRI, the PAN, and the PRD—two of which formed coalitions with smaller parties for the 2012 federal elections. Another small party formed in 2005 and loosely aligned with Mexico's powerful teacher's union, the PANAL, decided to field its own presidential candidate after the PRI broke its alliance with the party earlier this year. Three states—Sinaloa, Puebla, and Oaxaca—are currently governed by coalitions composed of the PAN, PRD, and other small left-leaning parties. These "stop the PRI" coalitions were successful in the 2010 state-level contests. However, they did not field candidates in the 2011 gubernatorial elections or in the 2012 elections. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI ) unified the country after the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) by organizing the major groups in Mexican society (organized labor, peasants, professionals) into a corporatist party that governed Mexico from 1929 until 2000. The PRI became a centrist party that relied on a hierarchical party structure, strong patronage system, and periodic electoral fraud to maintain its dominance. Through the 1960s, the PRI presided over a period of strong, state-led economic growth. The PRI's popularity declined, however, after its violent repression of student protesters led to the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, and its financial mismanagement in the 1970s contributed to an economic crisis in the early 1980s. Dissident PRI members split with the party in the mid-1980s, eventually creating a progressive party known as Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) after the PRI embraced neo-liberal (market-friendly) economic policies and proved unwilling to adopt more democratic internal procedures for choosing candidates. PRI presidential candidates were often hand-selected by incumbents through a process known as the "tap of the finger" ( el dedazo ) rather than through party primaries or nominating conventions. The PRI was accused of electoral fraud in the 1988 presidential election and has been criticized for corruption and for previously allowing organized crime to operate relatively freely within certain parameters set by the state. The PRI recently expelled Tomas Yarrington, a former governor of Tamaulipas, from the party after U.S. prosecutors alleged in a civil suit that he bought property in Texas to launder funds for Mexican drug traffickers. PRI power has waxed and waned over the course of the past 15 years. The PRI lost control of the Chamber of Deputies in 1997 and handed over the Mexican presidency to the PAN in 2000. Even as its power diminished in 2000, the PRI remained the largest party in the Mexican Congress and retained control over several key governorships. Prior to the 2012 elections, the PRI controlled 19 of 32 governorships, 25% of the seats in the Senate, and 48% of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies. With the allied PVEM, a small party focused exclusively on environmental protection, the PRI held a majority in the Chamber. The PRI is particularly dominant in the north/northeast and in the Yucatán. It competes with the PRD in southern Mexico. The National Action Party (PAN) is a socially conservative, pro-business party that was formed in 1939 by Catholic activists, professionals, and entrepreneurs who disagreed with the PRI's intervention in the economy and its hierarchical and secularist tendencies. From the 1940s through the mid-1980s, the PAN served as the official opposition to the PRI, but failed to capture any governorships or large numbers of congressional seats. By the late 1980s, however, the PAN had begun to build on the support it had developed in local and state elections to capture governorships in business-friendly northern states and in conservative central western states. Vicente Fox's come-from-behind presidential victory in 2000 marked the party's crowning achievement, but some have become disillusioned that corruption, impunity, and poverty are still pervasive in Mexico after 12 years of PAN rule. Escalating organized crime-related violence, some of which has occurred in response to the Calderón Administration's tough anticrime policies, has also weakened support for the PAN. Before the 2012 elections, the PAN governed six states alone and three in coalition with the PRD, and held 39% of the seats in the Senate and 28% of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies. The Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) is a center-left party founded by dissident PRI members in the late 1980s that has formed a "Progressive Movement" coalition with the Workers' Party (PT) and Citizens' Movement (PMC), two smaller left-wing parties. The PRD grew out of a coalition of leftist groups that supported the 1988 presidential bid of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, son of famed President Lázaro Cárdenas. Its early transition from movement to political party was hindered by the PRI's opposition to its existence and its own internal divisions.