We need a trade policy that is about raising the living standards of working people in the United States and the developing world, not just giving all the money to the rich. 

July 6, 2018

July 6, 2018 (Jobs Byte)

In spite of another large jump in employment in June, wage growth does not appear to be accelerating. The average hourly wage has increased by just 2.7 percent in the last year.

Dean Baker
Truthout, July 2, 2018

Welcome to our live blog of Mexico's historic elections today. See our introductory post here.

All update times are Eastern time zone.

UPDATE 11:12 PM: FEPADE provided an updated tally on electoral complaints received throughout the day. Throughout the country there were 394 complaints at the federal level, and even more concerning local races. 19 people were arrested for federal electoral crimes. 

UPDATE 11:08 PM: And now President Donald Trump has tweeted his congratulations to president-elect Obrador. 

 

Congratulations to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on becoming the next President of Mexico. I look very much forward to working with him. There is much to be done that will benefit both the United States and Mexico!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2018

UPDATE 11:01 PM: Mitofsky has now released its Senate exit polls, which indicate a possible majority for Morena and allies with 56-70 seats. There are 128 seats in the senate. 

 

UPDATE 10:36 PM: U.S. Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs, Rep. Raul Grijalva and Rep. Mark Pocan, have released a statement following Obrador's likely victory. 

UPDATE 10:27 PM: Pollster Mitofsky has just released exit poll data estimating Moreno and it's allies in "Together We Will Make History" winning between 256 and 291 seats - a majority. 

UPDATE 10:12 PM: Argentina issued a statement congratulating Obrador on his election victory. Again, official results are based on only 0.32 percent of total ballots, but as Richard Ensor of The Economist points out, these early returns indicate a broad-based victory for Obrador:  

24 states have started counting votes. Meade is winning in San Luís Potosí. Anaya is winning in Guanajuato and Aguascalientes. AMLO is winning in the other 21.

— Richard Ensor (@richardjensor) July 1, 2018

UPDATE 9:45 PM: Official results have just started being posted by INE, but the results appear irreversible. Ricardo Anaya of the PAN has also just conceded defeat to López Obrador. 

UPDATE 9:31 PM: More exit polls are giving AMLO around 50 percent of the vote. ADN has AMLO with 51 percent to Anaya's 23 percent, with Meade again at 18 percent. The Washington Post is reporting: "Several exit polls gave Lopez Obrador a double-digit lead over his two closest competitors...."

UPDATE 9:18 PM: El Financiero is also projecting Morena with 38 percent of the vote for the chamber of deputies (the legislative lower house), the PAN with 22 percent, the PRI with 18 percent, the PRD with 6 percent, and the PT (Workers' Party) with 4 percent.

UPDATE 9:16 PM: The ruling PRI's presidential candidate, Jose Antonio Meade, has conceded defeat to Obrador before official results are announced. 

UPDATE 9:11 PM: El Financiero's presidential exit poll has been released and it shows Morenas' Obrador with 49 percent of the vote. Anaya of the PAN is in second with 29 percent, and the PRI's Meade is in third with 18 percent, according to the poll. 

UPDATE 8:52 PM: The 5:00 pm report from Diálogos por la Democracia is now available. They say they "received and tracked and directed" 198 citizen complaints, of which 52 were for "soliciting votes for payment, promises of money, or other consideration."

UPDATE 8:43 PM: An observer in Tlaxcala reported at 8:20 pm:

[They're conducting the count for] President and diputado at the same time here In Tlaxcala. All mesas/casillas can decide if they are going to take additional security measures. At this casilla, they signed (have to confirm how many / who) as an extra security measure. Most we visited today were not signing. In another area of Tlaxcala they had stolen some ballots previous to the election. In addition to reprinting, they required signatures (2 mesa, 2 partidos) on every ballot. Wind in a tent is complicating working with lots of paper ballots...

UPDATE 8:37 PM: In a series of tweets (ongoing), the #Verificado2018 project reported the confirmed cases of electoral violence and irregularities in Puebla state today. A PRI activist was killed in the municipality of Acolihuia. At the Emiliano Zapata school in Barranca Honda, 8-10 gunmen showed up at around 2 PM and fire off shots, temporarily closing the center. At a voting center in Colonia Fuentes de San Aparicio shots were fired and ballots for president and governor were stolen. Ballots were also stolen in San Sebastián by seven armed individuals. 

UPDATE 8:28 PM: An observer in Jilotepec reports:

Here in Section 2260 in Jilotepec, the counting of blank ballots is finished and now a poll worker is reading out the number of registered voters that have voted on each page of the thick voter registry for casilla contigua 3 while all of the party representatives confirm that his count matches their count, page by page. In a few places there are discrepancies which they resolve. In total, 459 of 650 registered voters deposited ballots in the urns of this casilla.

With that done, on to the tallying, starting with the ballots for the presidential election. They are all dumped on a table by the president of the casilla, and the poll workers begin to unfold each ballot. Another long process. [They're tallying the municipal ballots and the presidential ballots at the same time.]

UPDATE 8:20 PM: At 8:06 pm, observers reported that rain did indeed begin to pour at casilla 0734 in Coyoacán, "forcing a hurried move inside an auditorium next to the casilla."

UPDATE 8:16 PM: Exit polls being reported by El Financiero project the next governor of Jalisco will be the Citizens Movement candidate Enrique Alfaro, and in Guanajuato the "Por Guanajuato al frente" candidate Diego Sinhué. The governor's race in Yucatán is projected to be between the PAN and Citizens Movement candidate Mauricio Vila and the PRI-Green Party candidate Mauricio Sahuí. In Veracruz, the race is projected to be down to the “Together We Will Make History” candidate Cuitláhuac García and the "Por Veracruz al frente" candidate Miguel Ángel Yunes. In Puebla, the race is projected to be between Miguel Barbosa of the "Together We Will Make History" coalition, and the candidate of the "Por Puebla al frente," Martha Erika Alonso.