Political Narratives, Communication Strategies, and Populism in the 2025 Mexican Judicial Elections

Abstract

 This article examines the political narratives, communication strategies, and presence of populist devices surrounding the unprecedented 2025 judicial election in Mexico. Drawing on a qualitative approach that combines textual analysis, content analysis, and documentary review, the study analyzes three key moments: (1) the discourses of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Claudia Sheinbaum during the presidential transition, (2) Sheinbaum’s messages before and after the election, and (3) the digital campaigns of the nine elected ministers. The findings show that the populist narrative served as the central mechanism of legitimation throughout the process: in López Obrador through a confrontational, moralizing, and anti-elite discourse, and in Sheinbaum through a more technical and pedagogical style that ultimately framed the election as a moment of historical rupture with the old Judicial Branch. The study also demonstrates that campaign communication played a marginal role compared to the decisive weight of political capital —partisan proximity, presidential endorsements, and institutional embeddedness— revealing that the election did not result in substantive democratization, but rather consolidated a model of populist politics that reconfigures the boundaries between legality, legitimacy, and power.