What Democrats Can Learn From Morena

The Mexican left combined ideological diversity on cultural issues with a shared, populist vision on material concerns.

On June 2, 2024, Claudia Sheinbaum was elected Mexico’s first female and Jewish president. Her party, the ruling National Regeneration Movement (Morena), secured landslides at virtually all levels of government. Just five months later across the Rio Grande, former Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party lost to Donald Trump and the GOP. Democrats’ 2024 loss culminated a post-pandemic backlash against incumbents—with the left-wing Morena representing a notable exception. The party, moreover, has bucked the trend of Brahminization among left-of-center parties that cater to college-educated professionals at the expense of a bygone working-class constituency.

Founded in 2014 by the political juggernaut Andrés Manuel López Obrador—known popularly as AMLO—Morena would become wildly popular in the ensuing decade. In 2015 following congressional midterms, the party held just 35 of 500 seats in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies. By 2018, Lopez Obrador became the first self-described leftist to win the presidency in almost five decades, securing 55 percent of the vote. President Sheinbaum—AMLO’s successor and protege—won by a margin of 33 points, representing 61 percent of votes cast. A Gallup poll found that AMLO ended his term with an 80 percent approval rating while Sheinbaum has enjoyed even higher marks of 85 percent. Morena and its allies now control 24 of 32 state governorships, 530 of 1113 state legislative seats, and two-thirds of both houses of congress.

What explains the appeal of the most popular political movement in the Americas? Ask legacy media and you’ll find extended diatribes on Mexico’s purported “democratic backsliding” under Morena. Ask apologists of leftist tyrants—such as Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega—and they will explain that Morena’s success is the obvious result of its righteous anti-imperialism. In reality, the party maintains a meticulous commitment to fiscal responsibility, democratic governance, and material populism. In the same vein, AMLO’s 2018 victory was the culmination of decades of coalition building as well as the cumulative failings of his predecessors.

After 2000, the end of one-party rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) spawned a competitive multiparty system centered around the centrist PRI, conservative National Action Party (PAN), and leftist Party of Democratic Revolution (PRD). Until AMLO’s election in 2018, no party won more than a plurality for either the presidency or congress. In 2000, AMLO was elected PRD Mayor of Mexico City, where Sheinbaum served as his environment secretary. He received widespread recognition for reducing poverty, expanding infrastructure and improving public security.

Lopez Obrador later ran for president in 2006 and 2012 in a coalition with the hard-left Labor Party (PT) and progressive Citizen’s Movement (MC). In 2006, AMLO lost with 36.06 percent of the vote to PAN-candidate Felipe Calderon’s 36.69 percent in an election marked by irregularities. In 2012, he secured 32.4 percent, losing to the PRI’s 39.2 percent under Enrique Peña Nieto (EPN).

Peña Nieto went on to reform welfare, education, and energy policy in a unity coalition with the PRI, PAN and PRD. The notorious 2013 energy reform allowed private firms to compete with the state oil and electricity giants Pemex and CFE. The nationalist wing of the PRD—including AMLO and Sheinbaum—denounced the betrayal by the party’s congressional leadership and founded Morena. For context, the Mexican left has championed state control of the country’s energy sector since its 1938 nationalization by President Lázaro Cárdenas—an idol within the governing coalition.

Having lost two consecutive elections to both the PAN and the PRI, Lopez Obrador cultivated a big-tent coalition in support of Morena, one that would promote ideological diversity on cultural issues while maintaining a shared, populist vision on material concerns. Lopez Obrador himself was widely regarded as traditionalist-to-conservative on moral and social matters. Ahead of congressional midterms in 2015, he stated that issues such as abortion and gay marriage were “not very important” to the newly formed Morena.

The party joined a coalition with the PT and the conservative Evangelical Social Encounter Party (PES); the rump PRD and progressive MC subsequently allied with the PAN in a comparable big-tent coalition. An indefatigable populist in the spirit of William Jennings Bryan, AMLO visited all 2,477 of Mexico’s municipalities ahead of the 2018 election where he promised to usher a “Fourth Transformation,” a reference to the preceding Mexican Revolution, Reforms of Benito Juarez, and War of Independence. The 4T—itself a shorthand for the governing coalition—would overturn 40 years of neoliberalism augured by the PRI and PAN.

Between 1976 and 1994, the minimum wage lost 75 percent of its inflation-adjusted value before stagnating until 2018. In the eyes of policymakers, low wages and weak labor rights would maintain Mexico’s comparative advantage under NAFTA and prevent a repeat of the spiraling debt and inflation of the 1980s. Morena rejected these paradigms and hiked the minimum wage from $2,650 pesos a month in 2018 to $8,400 (about $500 USD) in 2025—in real terms, a 150 percent increase. The administration also passed reforms promoting unionization and banning subcontracting, itself a convenient method for employers to avoid paying workers bonuses and other benefits.

The result was that real wages in Mexico rose 40 percent by the start of Sheinbaum’s term. Inflation, moreover, returned to pre-pandemic levels of 4 percent by 2023, with unemployment falling to a record low of 2.5 percent since 2024. All the more remarkable is the fact that GDP growth in Mexico has been mediocre, averaging less than two percent a year since 2018. And yet, wages under the PRI and PAN were so low that hikes have also benefited businesses large and small due to the subsequent boom in the country’s internal market. Unsurprisingly, both AMLO and Sheinbaum have received high marks for their management of the Mexican economy.

A master in branding, Lopez Obrador also slashed government bureaucracy under the moniker of “Republican Austerity.” Unlike the oxymoronic Department of Government Efficiency, which has pursued destructive cuts for their own sake, Republican Austerity served the discrete purpose of streamlining redistributive efforts. Middlemen, including foreign NGOs, were axed from the distribution of means-tested cash transfers, which were reformed into universal programs such as an old-age stipend for seniors 68 and older.

The administration also executed a mass building spree, often using the military to circumvent red tape. Megaprojects such as the Maya Train, Tehuantepec Interoceanic Corridor, and Olmeca oil refinery were deliberately situated in poor southern states to attract jobs, tourism, and investment. Consequently, Mexico’s south has grown at a faster rate than other regions for the first time in decades.

None of this has compromised the country’s finances. Despite the pandemic, Mexico’s debt-to-GDP under Morena has remained stable at 50 percent, with the country’s cumulative budget deficit averaging just 3.5 percent. Refusing to also raise taxes, Morena enforced an aggressive crackdown on corporate tax evasion, with revenues from large firms doubling since EPN’s term. In contrast to the endless boom and bust of its Latin American peers, low but stable growth under the penny-pinching Morena has delivered lasting results. A 2024 report from the World Bank found that 10 million left poverty during AMLO’s term.

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To tout these achievements, Lopez Obrador continued a tradition from his time as mayor: daily press conferences known as mañaneras. An avid admirer of the New Deal, the mañaneras served a similar function as FDR’s fireside chats, allowing AMLO to lash out at a mostly hostile media and set the government’s agenda. The three-hour affairs consisted of everything from history lectures to screeds against the corrupting influence of ‘el nintendo’ on Mexican youth.

While left-wing and materially populist in substance, much of the bible-quoting president’s rhetoric was moralistic and conservative in form. In his telling, privatizations and financial deregulation were part and parcel of rule by a cosmopolitan, technocratic elite that disdained workers’ traditional values. “[Mexican] cultural, moral, and spiritual values come from the people and the family, not from academia or the media—and especially not from politics or economic elites. It comes from the people,” he said during a 2021 mañanera.

In Mexico, opposition toward the former president came almost exclusively from middle- and upper-class professionals. An idiosyncratic friend of Donald Trump, AMLO was also universally hated by American centrists and progressives for policies deemed “problematic.” On energy, his government rejected the twin evils of market and climate fundamentalism. Under the PRI and PAN, market reforms and insufficient investment in state refineries led oil production to decline from four million barrels per day in 2004 to two million by 2013, ballooning Pemex’s debt and leading to a greater reliance on U.S. oil imports.

The subsequent privatization of Mexico’s energy market in 2014 led to an even greater fall in production, as the inefficient Pemex failed to adequately compete with foreign multinationals. As in California after the 1990s, the imposition of competition within CFE’s natural monopoly led electricity prices to jump 35 percent by 2017. AMLO subsequently rescued Pemex, increased oil production, and began construction of the aforementioned Olmeca refinery, though the latter has been plagued with delays and accidents.

Unable to fully overturn EPN’s energy reform, the administration proceeded to mire foreign firms in red tape, allotting preferential contracts and forcing sales of foreign concessions to Pemex and CFE. And because foreign firms were the primary source of renewables in Mexico, international and opposition progressives lambasted AMLO and CFE director Manuel Bartlett for questioning the unreliability of renewables and promoting fossil fuels. Nevermind the fact that electricity prices stabilized under Bartlett’s CFE despite a global energy crisis. Appropriately, Lopez Obrador labeled progressive detractors progres buena ondita—literally, good-vibes progressives.

All of this is emblematic of a political culture in which both the government and opposition represent ideologically heterogeneous political coalitions. Just as opposition progressives derided AMLO for distributing books on Christian morals and the Maya Train’s “ecocide” in the Yucatan, pro-government progressives happily tout Morena’s environmental commitments as well as a record number of women elected by the party.

Indeed, an under-discussed aspect of Mexico’s political evolution under Morena is the gradual erasure of organized Mexican conservatism. The evangelical PES has since vanished from congress where it’s been replaced by the Green Party (PVEM). Corralled by the 4T, the opposition PRI, PAN and AMLO’s former PRD formed a unity coalition in support of the socially progressive but free market senator Xochitl Galvez. The ensuing three-way election between Sheinbaum (Morena-PT-PVEM), Galvez (PAN-PRI-PRD), and Jorge Maynez (MC) was effectively a contest between shades of social progressivism. Arguably the most conservative figure of the election was the incumbent AMLO, whose antics continued to garner headlines.

Early in the race, the former president drafted a series of constitutional amendments then seen as a campaign wish list. These included the codification of various social programs, stronger labor rights, and a ban on the sale and use of vapes and fentanyl; Sheinbaum subsequently campaigned in favor of each of the proposals. Accordingly, the progressive Maynez—who ran on a platform of full drug decriminalization—attacked his Morena rival for doubling down on prohibitionism. Taking another page from her mentor, Sheinbaum similarly outfoxed Galvez by endorsing a “states rights” agenda on abortion.

The country’s most prominent right-wing populist, the pro-MAGA Sound of Freedom star, Eduardo Verástegui, polled a measly two percent during the election and failed to gather enough signatures to even field a candidacy. Following Sheinbaum’s victory, Verástegui gave an interview in which he lamented the government’s “anti-Catholic atheism.” Hours prior, AMLO touted his protégé’s divine mandate, reasoning that “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”

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To be sure, Sheinbaum’s election speaks to the 4T’s increasingly progressive evolution. Just as AMLO appeared intelligently designed to elicit scorn from oligarchs, legacy media, and cosmopolitan professionals, Sheinbaum, a climate scientist, appears mathematically engineered to appeal to North American progressivism. It’s all the more ironic that the only demographic the opposition won in 2024 was voters with graduate degrees, in large part due to the “anti-intellectual” former president.

Lopez Obrador took great pains to both empower his successor and secure his populist legacy. Prior to assuming office, the president-elect began accompanying her mentor at official processions, including completing her own mañaneras. Similarly, around half the current cabinet served in the previous administration; Obrador’s former chief of staff also assumed the presidency of Morena.

Since his term ended, the former president has effectively disappeared from public life, retiring to his Chiapas ranch where he intends to publish a book on “conservative thought.” During the last months of his term and the start of Sheinbaum’s, the Morena congress has worked like clockwork, passing virtually all of the aforementioned reforms including the ban against vapes and fentanyl, a controversial judicial reform, and an amendment stipulating that minimum wage hikes must always exceed inflation.

A technocrat with much less of the bombast of her predecessor, Sheinbaum has shortened the mañaneras to a maximum of two hours. She has likewise continued AMLO’s tradition of mass rallies and passed a slew of further reforms that seek to further empower labor while maintaining buy-in from the business community.

On the other hand, the administration has made significant alterations to its predecessor’s energy and security policies. In the former category, the president’s predictable climate commitments offer cause for concern. Sheinbaum has pledged to arbitrarily cap oil production at 1.8 million barrels per day and have renewables compose 45 percent of Mexico’s energy matrix by 2030. Considering that renewables currently make up only 12 percent of the country’s energy consumption, meeting the president’s laughably unrealistic goal would inevitably compromise the country’s energy sovereignty and lead to spiraling prices for workers.

Thankfully, the pledges thus far appear to be aspirational. Having moved heaven and earth to undo the PRI and PAN sabotage of Pemex, the firm’s continued woes (and Trump’s tariff threats) have forced the administration to prioritize energy independence and the completion of the Olmeca refinery. The Financial Times even reported that Sheinbaum is considering fracking—a major taboo in the region. For the moment, the influence of energy realists in the 4T—likely in the form of holdovers from AMLO’s government—appears to have mitigated the prospect of climate austerity ala Gustavo Petro’s Colombia. On balance, the administration has thus far committed to sensible policies that promote public-private partnerships in renewables and fossil fuels.

Conversely, the progressive Sheinbaum has pursued a surprisingly hardline—if also strategic—approach towards security. Under Calderon and EPN, the so-called kingpin strategy led to a tripling of homicides as cartel lieutenants fought to fill power vacuums left by the loss of their leaders. In response, AMLO deprioritized both the kingpin strategy and drug seizures and implemented a peacekeeping strategy of mass deployments against outbreaks of cartel violence. While homicides experienced a modest decline, critics rightfully contend that the policy contributed to the territorial expansion of cartels as well as a record number of disappearances under Lopez Obrador.

Recognizing the flaws in both approaches, Sheinbaum has shifted the priority to seizing drugs and arresting mid-level cartel members responsible for violence against civilians and logistics.

Sheinbaum’s security minister, Omar Harfuch, also announced the creation of an investigative police, a vital resource in a country where prosecutors rather than police investigate crimes. To that end, the government passed an amendment allowing for suspects of crimes like extortion to be placed under preventive detention. The results of the new approach have been resounding. In recent months, security forces have seized record amounts of fentanyl and reduced the homicide rate by 20 percent. Polls show that approval of the administration’s handling of public safety has risen from 28 to 52 percent since Sheinbuam’s October inauguration.

Finally, a vital and often overlooked aspect of Morena’s success is Mexico’s unique politics on immigration. On paper, the party celebrates “migration as a human right” as well as the country’s large diaspora. At the same time, anti-immigration sentiment in Mexico, as elsewhere in Latin America, has soared in recent years. Polls show that roughly equal shares Mexicans favor stricter versus more open immigration policies with both at around 40 percent. Yet, if you ask whether they approve of immigration via the country’s southern border with Guatemala, 55 percent oppose allowing entry to Haitian and Central American migrants and just 13 percent agree that immigrants are a net benefit to Mexico.

Since 2010, Mexican emigration to the U.S. fell to and has remained at record lows, a fact that only dawned on Donald Trump after he first assumed office in 2017. The country has subsequently engaged in routine, if sporadic, migration crackdowns depending on the incentives offered by Washington. Since 2024, Mexico has apprehended more than 1.2 million migrants, halved asylum applications, and virtually eliminated humanitarian travel permits at the behest of both the Biden and Trump administrations. While many Mexicans justifiably resent U.S. bullying, the truth is that the country’s unique role as both a transit country and migratory enforcer has helped divert domestic discontent over immigration.

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Mexico, of course, is plagued with challenges in the near term. Barring an autocratic Bukele-style crackdown, the reality is that security is unlikely to drastically improve in the short run, though the administration deserves praise for pursuing a more thoughtful security strategy than its predecessors or global democratic peers. While Sheinbaum deserves further plaudits for her deft management of Trump, it remains unclear whether Mexico can secure lasting tariff relief. The increasing likelihood of a recession in the U.S. will inevitably lead to lower growth south of the border. Further, the White House’s deranged proposal of launching an Iraq 2.0 war against the cartels shouldn’t be treated lightly.

Electorally, the 4T should be cognizant that it isn’t immune from eventual Brahminization. Morena may shed much of its cultural populism and energy realism by the end of Sheinbaum’s term in 2030. A key gauge will be whether the progressive MC continues to be viable as an opposition party in the 2027 and 2030 elections. Sheinbaum, however, can give thanks that the White House’s belligerence will likely delay the emergence of a Mexican far right. In the same vein, Sheinbaum’s favorable coverage in international media will help dampen the opposition’s stranglehold over foreign coverage of Mexico.

Democratic admirers would do well to learn the right lessons from Morena’s time in power. The most resounding explanation for the party’s electoral success on the economic front boils down to its spectacular record on wages. In the aftermath of the pandemic, Mexico remains one of a handful of nations in which wages have far outpaced inflation. In contrast, the average hourly wage in the U.S. since 2020 rose from just $32 to $35 even as economic growth has far exceeded that of Mexico and developed peers.

While it’s certainly true that both countries are in desperate need of jobs and productivity gains in value-added industries, the U.S. would be wise to take after its southern neighbor and raise its minimum wage. Considering that the 1968 federal minimum wage in America was around $15-an-hour in real terms, progressives are correct that doubling the current rate isn’t likely to turn Oklahoma into Argentina. Today, six of the seven swing states have rates under $15-an-hour, with Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina and the crucial Pennsylvania all still sitting at $7.25; a New York Times-Siena poll found that a whopping 82 percent of Pennsylvanians support hiking the minimum wage to $15. Clearly, Democrats have failed to seize low hanging electoral fruit.

At the same time, it’s a mistake to presume that economic populism on its own can save the Democratic Party. Hard as it may be for progressives in particular to swallow, their views on issues such as immigration, public safety, the energy transition, and identity politics are vastly out of step with those of working-class voters. To take just one example, most Americans believe in climate change and support investing in clean energy to reduce CO2 emissions. Like AMLO’s CFE, however, they reject the view that an energy transition warrants California’s spiraling energy prices and instead overwhelmingly prefer an “all-of-the-above” approach.

Morena’s success stands as a testament to its ability to forge a New Deal coalition centered around universal, common-sense commitments such as raising wages, lowering energy prices, and exalting the family and the nation. Elsewhere in Latin America, as in Europe and North America, this combination has increasingly fallen by the wayside in favor of leaders that cater to affluent progressives, identitarian activists, and international NGOs. Whether it’s Brazil’s Lula succumbing to the whims of climate fundamentalists or Argentina’s Alberto Fernandez promoting gender neutral Spanish, it’s hard to defend the electoral viability of Brahmin progressivism.

Democrats must embrace a politics of pluralism that champions the “problematic” social, cultural, and environmental views of workers in the service of material goals, including reigning in billionaires like Elon Musk. In the same vein, Morena’s success in ushering a novel political regime derived in large part from AMLO’s ability to channel worker grievances against oligarchs and college-educated professionals. For the moment, the party and its new president look poised to complete another successful term in office.

Juan David Rojas is a South Florida-based columnist for Compact magazine, covering the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America. He is also a contributor to American Affairs.