Orza
Report Presidential First Round Elections 2026
*Image created by artificial intelligence.
At ORZA, we believe that the strength of democracy depends, to a large extent, on the quality of information available to understand how collective decisions are shaped. The first round of presidential elections, in addition to deciding which candidacies advance to the final stage of the contest, also reveals voter trends, power dynamics between political projects, and territorial voting patterns across the country.
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2026 – 2030
At ORZA, we believe that the strength of democracy depends, to a large extent, on the quality of information available to understand how collective decisions are shaped. The first round of presidential elections, in addition to deciding which candidacies advance to the final stage of the contest, also reveals voter trends, power dynamics between political projects, and territorial voting patterns across the country.
With that objective, we present this report on the results of the first round of the 2026 presidential election. The document offers an interpretation of the political landscape that has emerged from the polls, analyzing the distribution of votes among candidates, participation levels, territorial performances, and the main trends that will shape the second round.
This first round also took place under unusual international attention. In its May 24 analysis, The Economist described the Colombian elections as a contest that could not be closer and warned that if Paloma Valencia were eliminated in the runoff, as indeed happened, the country would perhaps face the most polarized elections in recent world history.
The magazine frames the dispute between three radically different national projects in terms of economy, security, and the fight against drug trafficking, within a context it describes as the weariness of Gustavo Petro's government and the expansion of armed groups. Furthermore, the election serves as a regional thermometer, as it will test whether the wave of populist, Trump-style right-wing politics sweeping across Latin America continues to grow, or if the left-wing government holds its ground. It is precisely in such an extremely polarized scenario that a rigorous and disaggregated reading of the results becomes indispensable to understanding what the electorate truly decided.
The analysis is based on the monitoring and systematization of election data conducted by ORZA, using the 100 % data from polling stations that submitted reports, in accordance with Bulletin No. 16 issued by the electoral authority, and a total of 122,020 polling stations that submitted reports, which were used as the basis for consolidating the data presented in this report.
01
The winner
Abelardo de la Espriella
Abelardo de la Espriella is a criminal defense attorney who finished first with a total of 10,361,499 votes—representing 43.74% of the total vote in this first round of the 2026–2030 presidential election—running on behalf of the “Defenders of the Homeland” signature-based movement. His candidacy is positioned on the right, more radical than that of his former rival Paloma Valencia, and features former Finance Minister José Manuel Restrepo as his running mate.
01
The winner
Abelardo de la Espriella
Abelardo de la Espriella is a criminal defense attorney who finished first with a total of 10,361,499 votes—representing 43.74% of the total vote in this first round of the 2026–2030 presidential election—running on behalf of the “Defenders of the Homeland” signature-based movement. His candidacy is positioned on the right, more radical than that of his former rival Paloma Valencia, and features former Finance Minister José Manuel Restrepo as his running mate.
He holds a law degree from Sergio Arboleda University (Bogotá campus) and has a specialization in criminal law from the Externado University of Colombia. His professional career at the law firm De la Espriella Lawyers is his main liability as a candidate and the primary reputational drawback. His business interests include investments in the fashion, spirits, and art sectors. He has made financial donations to the Republican Party in the United States, of which he is a citizen. Abelardo De la Espriella’s government platform, under the Defensores de la Patria movement, is based on a vision of «Extreme Coherence,» centered on the pillars of Family, God, and Private Property. His security proposal, called «Pax Romana,» seeks to regain territorial control within 90 days through an aggressive military offensive, aerial spraying of 330,000 hectares of illicit crops, and the construction of mega-prisons, modeled after Bukele’s approach. On the economic front, he advocates a libertarian model, which includes reducing the 40% tax on the state apparatus, eliminating the 4×1000 tax, and promoting fracking to trigger GDP growth. In his proposed international agenda, he prioritizes strategic alliances with the United States and Israel, while proposing to review Colombia’s continued membership in organizations such as the UN and the IACHR, and to abolish the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP). His communication strategy uses international figures such as Donald Trump, Nayib Bukele, and Javier Milei as models of political leadership. Unlike other candidates, he bases his electoral appeal on showcasing his personal wealth and a high-consumption lifestyle in cities such as Miami and Tuscany. His rhetoric emphasizes national sovereignty vis-à-vis international organizations and direct intervention in the healthcare system to audit contracts. The candidacy presents itself as an alternative outside the party system, appealing to segments of the electorate that prioritize authority and the reduction of the state apparatus.
Sectoral risk map De la Espriella / Restrepo campaign
Iván Cepeda Castro
Iván Cepeda Castro (Bogotá, 1962). Presidential candidate for Colombia on behalf of the Historic Pact for the 2026 elections. In the first round, he finished second with 9,688,361 votes, representing 40.90% of the total vote. A left-wing politician, the candidate studied philosophy at San Clemente of Ohrid University in Bulgaria during the final years of the Cold War, when the country was part of the Soviet bloc under a communist regime. He also holds a specialization in international humanitarian law from the Catholic University of Lyon in France.
Iván Cepeda Castro
Iván Cepeda Castro (Bogotá, 1962). Presidential candidate for Colombia on behalf of the Historic Pact for the 2026 elections. In the first round, he finished second with 9,688,361 votes, representing 40.901% of the total vote. A left-wing politician, the candidate studied philosophy at the University of St. Clement of Ohrid in Bulgaria during the final years of the Cold War, when the country was part of the Soviet bloc under a communist regime. He also holds a specialization in international humanitarian law from the Catholic University of Lyon in France.
He began his public service in human rights organizations, where he founded the Manuel Cepeda Vargas Foundation and led the Movement of Victims of State Crimes (Movice). In 2010, he was elected.
Sectoral Risk Map Cepeda / Quilcué Campaign
Abelardo de la Espriella’s advancement to the runoff as the top vote-getter, with 10,344,679 votes—665,534 more than Iván Cepeda—confirms at the polls a phenomenon that traditional polls failed to fully anticipate. The result confirmed that the logic of the runoff had taken hold before the first round had even ended. Although doubts persisted until the final days regarding the performance of some candidates, voters ultimately concentrated their votes en masse on two political platforms perceived as the only ones with a real chance of contending for power. Between Abelardo and Cepeda, they accounted for more than 84% of the valid vote, while the rest of the candidates were reduced to marginal shares. Rather than an open contest among multiple alternatives, the election ultimately became an early contest between two models for the country.
That an outsider with no party of his own, no experience in public office, and with a campaign initially built from social media and public opinion has overcome the official candidate is one of the main novelties of this election. The fact is even more relevant if one considers that Cepeda arrived backed by a government in power, by the Executive's capacity for mobilization, and by a left-wing movement that had obtained historic representation in Congress. Furthermore, his 9.68 million votes surpass those obtained by Gustavo Petro in the first round of 2022. The left grew, but not enough. Despite governmental backing and expanding its electoral base, the official party failed to win in the first round. The government's wear and tear ended up being greater than the advantages of holding power.
De la Espriella's initial growth was driven by an electorate that identified with an anti-elite, anti-politics, and anti-establishment narrative. His campaign managed to interpret a sense of exhaustion with traditional parties, the functioning of institutions, and the political leadership's ability to respond to problems such as security, economic growth, and governance. His main asset was not his own party organization, but the idea that he represented a break from those who had managed power for the past decades. That hard anti-establishment vote was the first to make him competitive and allowed him to consolidate as a real option. However, as his candidacy became viable, a significant portion of regional political elites and traditional structures began to migrate towards his campaign and ended up supporting the candidate who appeared to be the strongest alternative to face the ruling party. In fact, the arrival of these sectors was faster than what was observed around Rodolfo Hernández in 2022. De la Espriella built his viability based on an anti-establishment discourse, but ended up becoming the meeting point for a significant part of that same establishment.
The election also raises an uncomfortable question about the actual effectiveness of the so-called «gag law» (Law 2494 of 2025), designed to limit the influence of polls on voters’ decisions during the final stretch of the campaign. The result seems to suggest that exactly the opposite occurred. In the absence of public polls, the market sought other references to gauge who had a real chance of reaching the Casa de Nariño. That space was filled by international prediction platforms such as Polymarket, which during the final week of the campaign assigned De la Espriella a probability of nearly 73% of winning the presidency, compared to 27% for Cepeda, with more than $38 million traded. The paradox is clear: a rule designed to reduce the influence of election polls ended up shifting that influence from instruments subject to methodological standards, oversight, and public scrutiny to a private platform, unregulated by Colombian electoral authorities and operated primarily from abroad. If the first round ended up functioning as an early runoff, part of the explanation may lie in the fact that these markets helped consolidate a perception of viability around two candidates and accelerated the shift of the tactical vote toward those who appeared to be the only contenders with a real chance of competing for power. The allegations of irregularities made by Gustavo Petro and Iván Cepeda after the first round are among the most significant political developments of the day. Not because there is conclusive evidence to gauge their scope, but because they break with a relatively stable tradition of accepting presidential results in Colombia. They also reflect the ruling party’s difficulties in coming to terms with a result that contradicts the expectations they had built up over much of the campaign. At its core, the controversy is not merely legal or electoral: it is a dispute over the political interpretation of the election. While the opposition presents it as a rejection of the government, Petro’s camp seeks to establish the idea that the result is still open to challenge.
De la Espriella's initial growth was driven by an electorate that identified with an anti-elite, anti-politics, and anti-establishment narrative. His campaign managed to interpret a sense of exhaustion with traditional parties, the functioning of institutions, and the political leadership's ability to respond to problems such as security, economic growth, and governance. His main asset was not his own party organization, but the idea that he represented a break from those who had managed power for the past decades. That hard anti-establishment vote was the first to make him competitive and allowed him to consolidate as a real option. However, as his candidacy became viable, a significant portion of regional political elites and traditional structures began to migrate towards his campaign and ended up supporting the candidate who appeared to be the strongest alternative to face the ruling party. In fact, the arrival of these sectors was faster than what was observed around Rodolfo Hernández in 2022. De la Espriella built his viability based on an anti-establishment discourse, but ended up becoming the meeting point for a significant part of that same establishment.
03
Comparison of first round results 2022 vs 2026
Furthermore, these results show the evaporation of the political center. While in 2022, the center (also represented by Sergio Fajardo) attempted to position itself as an alternative of rational management, by 2026 that space seems to have been devoured by block logic. The center in Colombia suffers from a «fragility of moderation» in the face of an already institutionalized left-wing narrative and a right-wing populism (embodied in figures like De la Espriella) that appeals to the gut. Thus, the increasingly weak discourse of the center runs out of steam. The graph shows that voters are no longer looking for a «middle ground,» but for a clear candidacy in the first round, with a strategic vote from the outset, which turns the center into a spectator of a heavyweight fight.
First Round Results: 2022 / 2026
The transition from 2022 to 2026 suggests that the left-wing narrative has achieved what authors such as Steven Levitsky define as the «stabilization of a core coalition.» By maintaining its strength at 41.13 %, the narrative is no longer one of insurgency against the system, but rather of a deeply rooted political identity that has managed to frame social demands within the national institutional dynamic, under the logic of rich versus poor. This phenomenon reflects the thesis of the «maturation of the left» in Latin America, where the electorate stops voting on the basis of a momentary emotion and instead forms a bloc of programmatic loyalty that withstands the erosion of power. In contrast, the phenomenon of «populist outsiders,» represented by the rise of figures such as Rodolfo Hernández (2022) and Abelardo de la Espriella on this year’s right-wing populist spectrum, demonstrates a volatile nature. Following Jan-Werner Müller and his studies on populism, these candidates operate under the «illusion of the sole representative of the people,» a powerful yet fragile narrative that depends on constant polarization. While the left appears to have built a concrete «foundation» among its voters, the populist right captures the vote of the discontented, which is fluid by definition.
04
From the first-round polls: How did the candidates grow?
Dumbbell Pot. Interparty consultation vs. First round 2026
The case of Iván Cepeda, moving from a consultation of 1,286,859 votes to a total of 9,231,677 votes in the first round, illustrates what Donald Horowitz (1985) calls “coalitions of convenience,” which transform into identity blocs. This growth, more than seven times its initial base, suggests that the left managed to capture its militants and a much broader mass of unaffiliated voters, territorial machinery, and strategic voters who saw in this bloc a stable national structure for their interests. In fragmented party systems (Roberts, 2014), voters tend to coalesce around the pole that demonstrates the greatest capacity for governability, allowing a modest consultation to be just the foundation for massive mobilization in the general election.
On the other hand, the results for Abelardo De la Espriella—who received 10,361,499 votes without having gone through a primary—contrast with those of Paloma Valencia, whose vote count dropped from 3,236,286 in the primary to 1,639,685 in the first round, revealing the tension between media charisma and party structure. The populist outsider capitalized on the discontent of those who did not feel represented by traditional primaries, achieving “organic” yet powerful growth. While Paloma Valencia failed to fully translate the momentum from the Gran Consulta por Colombia into the presidential election, De la Espriella embodied “politics as spectacle,” where a personality-driven narrative supplanted the need for a pre-existing organized base and ultimately challenged the order established by the traditional machinery of the right-wing bloc. The performance of the centrist or alternative bloc candidates confirmed the thesis of “affective polarization” (Iyengar, Sood & Lelkes, 2012). Sergio Fajardo was the only one in this group to marginally exceed one million votes, with 1,009,073 votes, while Claudia López received 225,517 and Roy Barreras just 14,108. In contrast, the top two candidates garnered 20,049,860 votes, equivalent to 84.65% of valid votes. In this scenario, the political center was caught in the vise of two poles with narratives of salvation or punishment. The weight graph shows short or regressive lines for these candidates in terms of relative relevance; their inability to connect the poll with the first round demonstrates that, in 2026, the electorate perceived moderation as a lack of definition in the face of an uncertain and unstable national context.
05
Blank votes, participation, and abstention
Participation vs. Abstention (1st round)
In 2026, the first round recorded more than 22,444,275 valid votes, surpassing the 21,380,037 from 2022 by over one million votes. This confirms that, although the percentage turnout remained practically stable compared to the previous election, the absolute volume of citizens who went to the polls continued to grow. In other words, the election did not produce a percentage leap equivalent to that of 2018, but it did consolidate the new size of the active Colombian electorate: a country where more than 22 million valid votes became the new benchmark for measuring presidential competition.
The 2026 presidential election did not mark a break from 2022, but rather the consolidation of a new baseline for voter turnout. After decades in which abstention tended to outpace turnout, the last three presidential elections saw voter turnout remain above 50%.
In 2026, with 23,978,304 voters out of a total of 41,421,973 eligible voters, turnout reached 57.88%, more than three percentage points higher than in 2022. This confirms that the surge seen in 2018 was not an isolated incident, but rather the beginning of a higher baseline for turnout in presidential elections. However, this new baseline does not eliminate the weight of abstention. Even in a highly polarized election, nearly 45 out of every 100 eligible citizens did not turn out to vote. Therefore, the key takeaway from 2026 is not that turnout grew substantially, but that it managed to remain at high levels without resolving the structural problem of abstention. The election confirmed a more mobilized electorate than at the start of the century, but one still marked by a significant number of latent voters.
For years, Colombia maintained a structural abstention rate above 50%, reaching its peak in 2014 (60.1%), an election marked by the perception of low competitiveness in the first round. Starting in 2018, a shift was observed: turnout consistently exceeded the 50% threshold, signaling a reconfiguration of electoral behavior. In 2026, that threshold was not only maintained but also expanded: turnout reached 57.88% (%), while abstention fell to 42.12% (%).
Total votes for presidential election (1st round)
The universe of valid votes in the first round of presidential elections almost doubled in two decades, going from 11.2 million in 2002 to 23.7 million in 2026. The most significant jump occurred between 2014 and 2018 (+6.4 million), consolidating a sustained expansion of the active electorate that reflected both census growth and increased citizen mobilization. The specific drop in 2014 broke the upward trend and marked the recent historical low, while 2026 established a new ceiling for effective participation in absolute terms.
Blank vote for presidential election (1st round)
In the first round of the presidential election on May 25, 2014, the number of blank ballots reached an unusually high level for a Colombian presidential election: nearly 6.1% of valid votes (770,543 votes), compared to 1.54% in 2010, in an election marked by the highest abstention rate of the period analyzed. The prevailing explanation does not point to a single cause, but rather to a situation of polarization with an “orphaned” electorate: as the race centered on two opposing poles (Santos and Zuluaga), a segment of voters who felt equidistant from both could not find an option that represented them and channeled that rejection through the blank vote. Unlike the abstainer, the blank-vote castor does go to the polls and mark that box, which in the research by García Sánchez and Cantor (2018) is characterized as a person with greater cognitive, informational, and educational resources: someone who understands the political landscape and, precisely for that reason, decides to actively express their disagreement rather than abstain.
In the first round of 2026, however, the dynamics of polarization had the opposite effect on blank votes. The May 31 election recorded 385,445 blank votes, equivalent to 1.71% of valid votes. Although in absolute terms there was a slight increase compared to 2022, when 363,301 blank votes were recorded, in relative terms the indicator remained low and even declined slightly from the 1.78% of the previous election. The key difference from 2014 is that this polarization did not drive voters toward casting blank ballots, but rather drew them toward the extremes: the results revealed a scenario where the center disappeared, the right reconfigured itself, and the confrontation between two models for the country reduced the space for a neutral electoral protest.
In other words, while in 2014 polarization left centrist voters feeling alienated, leading them to cast blank ballots, in 2026 the clash between opposing platforms mobilized those same voters to take sides—largely through strategic voting or active rejection of a candidate. Therefore, the most important fact was not merely that the blank vote remained at 1.71%, but that it did so in an election with over 22.4 million valid votes. Polarization did not increase the blank vote: it compressed it.
Readingterritorialized
Any analysis of voter turnout in 2026 must also take into account the regional distribution of the voter registry. Abstention does not occur within a homogeneous electorate, but rather across regions with vastly different sizes, demographic compositions, and levels of engagement. According to the voter registry for the 2026 presidential election, Colombia has 41,421,973 eligible voters. Based on this, Bulletin 16 recorded 22,720,660 voters, equivalent to a national turnout of 54.85%. This ratio allows us to measure not only how many citizens participated, but also which regions ended up having a greater or lesser impact relative to their potential electoral size.
In this breakdown, the Caribbean Coast emerges as the most significant regional bloc among the prioritized territories, with 8,858,073 registered voters, equivalent to 21.4% of the national census. However, in the first round, it contributed 4,196,798 voters, equivalent to 18.5% of the national total of voters, which indicates relative underrepresentation compared to its census weight. Bogotá, on the other hand, had 6,076,599 registered voters—that is, 14.7% of the national census—but contributed 3,894,944 voters, equivalent to 17.1% of the national total. This confirms that the capital ended up being overrepresented in terms of actual voter turnout on election day.
The Pacific region performed more in line with its structural weight. Valle del Cauca, Cauca, Nariño, and Chocó had a combined total of 6,456,524 registered voters, equivalent to 15.6% of the national census, and contributed 3,504,489 voters, or 15.4% of the national turnout. Antioquia, on its own, had 5,448,240 registered voters, 13.2% of the census, but contributed 2,722,240 voters, equivalent to 12.0% of the national total, falling slightly short of its potential weight. In contrast, Santander, the Coffee Region, and Boyacá showed a turnout rate higher than their share of the voter registry: Santander accounted for 7.8% of the voter registry and contributed 8.5% of the voters; the Coffee Region accounted for 5.3% of the census and contributed 5.8%; and Boyacá, with 2.5% of the census, contributed 2.9% of the voters.
This point is key to interpreting actual voter turnout on election day. A region might have had a large share of the total registered voters but still be underrepresented in the national vote if its turnout was below average; conversely, it might have had a smaller registered voter base but end up overrepresented if it mobilized a higher proportion of its eligible voters. In Bogotá, the 14.7% of the national census translated into 17.1% of voters; on the Caribbean Coast, the 21.4% of the census ended up representing just 18.5% of voter turnout; and in Antioquia, the 13.2% of the census became 12.0% of voters. The difference between census weight and actual contribution reveals where mobilization actually took place.
The demographic composition adds another layer to this reading. At the national level, women were the majority within the 2026 electoral census, with 21,298,492 eligible female citizens compared to 20,123,481 men. This does not, by itself, mean that women voted more, but it does require reading participation with a demographic focus: if female participation was higher, equal to, or lower than male participation, that difference could have modified the actual weight of territories where women have a greater census presence, such as Bogotá, the Pacific region, and several urban areas of the country.
Age is also a determining factor in completing the analysis. The aging of the electorate does not impact all regions equally: in territories such as the Coffee Axis, Boyacá, and some departments of the Andean Pacific, the larger proportion of older adults may combine electoral discipline with mobility, health, and access to polling stations barriers. In contrast, in Bogotá, Antioquia, the Caribbean Coast, and the main urban centers of the Pacific, the behavior of young and middle-aged adults will help determine whether polarization expanded the universe of voters or if the election ended up resting on the traditionally more consistent segments.
In this regard, the final cross-analysis must compare three dimensions: census weight, effective participation, and real contribution to the national total of voters. In this way, the 2026 analysis should not be limited to stating whether participation increased or decreased compared to 2022. The fundamental question is where that participation occurred, which demographic groups sustained it, and which regions ended up weighing more or less than their electoral size anticipated. That is the difference between an aggregate reading of abstention and a political reading of territorial incidence.
06
The Geography of Power and the Decline of the Center
Bogotá: Cepeda Dominates but the Right Grows
Bogotá and the Caribbean Coast are decisive territories, but they are not enough on their own to elect a president. The day shows that the national result is built by cross-territorial aggregation, not by the simple sum of two large electoral blocs. Cepeda maintains a significant advantage on the Coast and keeps a competitive base in several popular and peripheral territories; however, De la Espriella manages to compensate for this strength with wide differences in Antioquia, Medellín, Santander, and Cundinamarca, where the right not only wins but accumulates enough volume to alter the national balance. The 2026 map thus confirms that the Presidency is not defined solely in the symbolically most cited territories, but in the ability to articulate simultaneous majorities in the urban center, the Antioquian corridor, the center-east, the social periphery, and the expatriate vote. That is the key to understanding this election: Cepeda wins strategic spaces, but De la Espriella builds a denser and better-distributed national majority. Bogotá: Cepeda dominates but the right grows.
Bogotá stops behaving like an automatic left-wing stronghold and becomes one of the main symptoms of this election's electoral realignment. Although Cepeda retains a high vote, with nearly 1.7 million votes, the right manages to prevail with approximately 1.94 million, significantly expanding its base compared to 2022. This data is politically relevant because the capital had been one of the epicenters of the consolidation of "petrismo" since 2018, especially in popular neighborhoods in the south and southwest. However, the 2026 result shows a broader recomposition of anti-petrismo votes, capable of penetrating the middle classes, dissatisfied urban sectors, and voters who prioritized punishing the government over traditional party affiliation. The center, represented by Fajardo, maintains a marginal presence, although slightly higher than in 2022, without the capacity to alter the main dispute between Cepeda and De la Espriella.
Costa Caribe: Cepeda is holding up better than expected and the right is losing regional traction
The Caribbean Coast is delivering a more complex result than initially anticipated. Far from a homogeneous victory for De la Espriella, the available data for Atlántico, Bolívar, and Córdoba show a lead for Cepeda in all three departments, albeit with important nuances. In Atlántico, the left is around 549,000 votes compared to 452,000 for the right; in Bolívar, Cepeda reaches nearly 443,000 votes versus 335,000 for De la Espriella; and in Córdoba, the left garners 391,000 votes while the right falls to around 287,000. The outcome suggests that the endorsement of regional structures and traditional operators did not fully translate into a right-wing coastal wave. Instead, the Historical Pact retains a robust territorial base, especially in popular, rural, and peripheral areas, where the social vote, the victim vote, and left-wing organizational networks maintain mobilization capacity. The major regional conclusion is that the Caribbean did not operate as a closed bloc: machinery had an impact, but it did not replace the political identity accumulated by the
Antioquia and Medellín: The right consolidates its main territorial stronghold
Antioquia confirms its role as the country's main right-wing stronghold. In Antioquia's rural component, De la Espriella garners approximately 1.8 million votes, well ahead of Cepeda, who reaches about 800,000, and Fajardo, who barely exceeds 200,000. This trend is also replicated in Medellín. The data confirms that Antioquian voters overwhelmingly aligned with a rejection of the national government and a highly disciplined right-wing political identity. Furthermore, Medellín shows a more intense expansion of the right compared to 2022, indicating that De la Espriella managed to capitalize on both the traditional Uribista vote and urban opinion sectors that found in his candidacy a vehicle for direct confrontation with Petrismo.
Santander and De la Espriella's Victory
Santander remains in the right-wing camp, although the result shows a contraction compared to the previous cycle. De la Espriella obtains nearly 776,000 votes, clearly surpassing Cepeda, who reaches 343,000, and Fajardo, who stays around 53,000. The victory confirms that Santander continues to be a territory highly receptive to rhetoric about order, security, rejection of "petrismo," and conservative mobilization, especially in Bucaramanga, the metropolitan area, and provinces with a political tradition adverse to the left. However, the right-wing vote has declined compared to the 900,000 votes in 2022, which necessitates a cautious interpretation of the result: De la Espriella wins the department but does not fully replicate the anti-Petro peak of the previous cycle. Cepeda, meanwhile, maintains a stable base without decisive expansion, while the center remains practically residual.
Valle del Cauca and Conflict Zones: Cepeda Maintains the Periphery Core of "Petrismo"
Valle del Cauca confirms Cepeda's structural strength in the southwest. The left reaches nearly 1.2 million votes, surpassing the right's 845,000 and falling far short of the center, which remains around 89,000 votes. Although De la Espriella grows compared to the right's 2022 vote count, Cepeda maintains the lead and keeps Valle as one of the most important platforms for progressive voting. This behavior is consistent with the historical strength of "petrismo" in territories marked by social conflict, territorial inequality, the presence of ethnic communities, and memories of victimization. The underlying interpretation is that, in the country's political periphery, the left maintains an organic connection that is more than a coincidental electoral trend: Cepeda not only inherits a national brand but also a territorial identification structure that the Historic Pact has been consolidating since 2018. To further refine the analysis of conflict zones, it is advisable to incorporate the results from Cauca, Nariño, Chocó, Putumayo, Caquetá, Guaviare, and Meta.
Restrepo fulfills the classic function of the technical vice president in a strong-toned presidential ticket. Abelardo built his candidacy on confrontation, performativity, and a rhetorical repertoire that intensely activates his base but generates resistance in the median voter, especially among the business community, financial guilds, and urban professionals who share a rejection of Petrismo but distrust the lawyer's style. Restrepo, former Minister of Finance and former Minister of Commerce under Duque, translates that formula into the language that segment understands: macroeconomic analysis, budgetary management, dialogue with guilds, and governability. In a second round, where Cepeda will build the narrative that «Abelardo is an institutional risk,» Restrepo is the operational response to that attack, as he is proof that behind the tone lies governing capacity. The cost is the Duque liability, which the progressive bloc will exploit with data on inflation, debt, and failed tax reform. But that cost is manageable, as voters who oppose Duque are unlikely to vote for Abelardo. Restrepo legitimizes the electoral base for a second round.
Quilcué's candidacy is misunderstood if viewed through the lens of conventional electoral metrics. Her vote capital is modest, and her ability to transfer votes outside the progressive bloc is practically nil. Quilcué was chosen to embody the sociological antithesis of the strongest rival formula: an indigenous Nasa leader against a Paloma Valencia who, though also from Cauca, represents the lineage of the department's traditional political class, historically questioned for its ties to landowning elites and for episodes of institutionalized racism. This opposition is a narrative architecture that turns Cauca into a microcosm of the national debate over who has the right to speak for Colombia. In a second round, where the dispute becomes identity-based rather than programmatic, Quilcué establishes an inalienable ethical floor that no attack from the opposition bloc can erode without incurring a symbolic cost. It is a defensive asset: calibrated not to win new votes but to prevent the progressive base from defecting due to disillusionment or the «radical Cepeda» narrative. Its value is structural, not arithmetic.
08
Roadmap: Second Pass Arithmetic
The first key point to note when analyzing the results of the second round is a simple fact: none of the candidates reached 51% of the total votes. De la Espriella starts with the highest baseline (43.74% of the first-round vote), equivalent to 10,361,499 votes, but still needs to gain an additional 7.26 percentage points—about 1.72 million votes—to secure the presidency. Cepeda, for his part, obtained 40.90% (9,688,361 votes) and needs to gain an additional 10.10 percentage points, or nearly 2.39 million votes. This disparity defines much of the dynamics of the runoff: while De la Espriella is competing to consolidate an already established lead, Cepeda faces a greater challenge of expanding his electoral base to reach an absolute majority.
Strategic Reconfiguration: From First to Second Round
Every campaign must move towards the center of the matrix to capture the median voter, but the cost of moving varies in each case. Cepeda starts as the furthest from the institutional-dialogue quadrant and must moderate his tone and project governability without losing his anti-establishment base. Abelardo, as a challenger to the right, will need to moderate enough to capture the center without alienating the anti-Petro vote that took him to the second round. The alliance table nuances this movement: adhesions, besides bringing electoral capital, also signal the symbolic repositioning that the median voter reads as a condition for granting their vote.
Where do they get the votes they are missing?
09
Conclusions
The first round determined the two finalists, but it also revealed a politically significant fact: although Abelardo De la Espriella and Iván Cepeda together accounted for 84.64% of the vote, nearly 15% of the electorate supported other candidates or cast blank ballots. Consequently, the second round will be determined less by the consolidation of existing bases and more by each campaign’s ability to attract voters who opted for alternatives to the two candidates currently vying for the presidency. This segment takes on even greater significance when one considers that the margin between the two finalists was 2.84 percentage points. With a turnout of nearly 57%, one of the highest recorded in a presidential first round, the scope for a significant expansion of the electorate appears narrower than in previous elections. Unlike in 2022, when more than a million additional voters turned out for the second round, the current challenge for both candidates seems to lie less in mobilizing new voters and more in winning support within the pool of voters who already participated in the first round.
In this scenario, the one million votes obtained by Sergio Fajardo (4.20% %) take on strategic importance: While a significant portion of the 6.86 percentage points achieved
Arithmetic also poses distinct challenges for each candidate. De la Espriella finds himself at 7.26 percentage points
The results also reflect a reshaping of Colombia’s political landscape. Figures who in recent years have played central roles in public debate and in building governing coalitions demonstrated limited electoral appeal in this election. The most obvious case is that of Roy Barreras, whose candidacy failed to secure more than 11% of the vote. This suggests that the runoff will be less influenced by traditional leadership or individual political operators and more by the finalists’ ability to connect with an electorate that appears to have favored candidates better able to represent either change or continuity regarding the policies at stake. Consequently, the twenty days between the first and second rounds will be decisive. More than a simple extension of the campaign, they will constitute a new election in which alliances, signs of governability, and the ability to attract voters who were left out of the first round could determine who will ultimately occupy the Casa de Nariño.