Claudia Sheinbaum, the former head of the government of Mexico City and candidate for the ruling Morena party, is projected to be the country’s first female president.
Sheinbaum, a former climate scientist, entered the campaign as the favorite, according to February and March polls by Mitofsky, Parametría, and De las Heras Demotecnia, which placed her support between 49% and 67% compared to her political rivals.
Sheinbaum holds a degree in physics and a master’s and doctorate in energy engineering. She has received several accolades for her academic career.
Born in Mexico City in 1962, she has two children and one grandchild. Her partner, Jesús María Tarriba, whom she met at university while both were studying physics, is currently a financial risk specialist at the Bank of Mexico.
In 2018, she became the head of government of Mexico City, the first woman elected to this position. Her desire to be part of Mexican politics began in 2000 when she was appointed Secretary of the Environment for the Federal District under Andrés López Obrador’s administration until 2006.
In 2015, she became the first woman elected as the head of the Tlalpan borough, serving until 2017. In early 2018, she joined the government of Mexico City as head until June 2023, when she stepped down to run for the presidency with the Morena party, of which she is a founder, aiming to succeed her party colleague, López Obrador.
As part of her campaign within Morena, Sheinbaum is designated the coordinator for the Defense of the Transformation, whose mission, as stated on her LinkedIn profile, is to defend and promote the values of the Fourth Transformation of Public Life in Mexico, the central axis of López Obrador’s policy.
Much of her life has been dedicated to university teaching, focusing on renewable energy and climate change. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to which Sheinbaum contributed, received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Sheinbaum is not only the first female president in Mexico, but the first president with Jewish heritage, although she rarely speaks publicly about her personal background and has governed as a secular leftist.
Translated by Karol Suarez. CNN’s Rey Rodríguez, Laura Paddison, Jack Guy, Fidel Gutiérrez, Krupskaia Alís, Aditi Sangal, Karen Esquivel and Carmen Sánchez contributed reporting to this post.
