Methodology of the Mexico 2027 political test

Full transparency: this is how we calculate your political match.

1. Which parties are in the test

The test compares your answers with parties, not with candidates: in the election to the Chamber of Deputies you vote for a party, whose emblem is on the ballot. It includes:

• All the national political parties registered with the INE, which can stand in the federal election: eight as of October 2026.
• The parties registered in 2026, SOMOS and Partido PAZ, on equal terms with the others, even though 2027 is their first election.

Coalitions are not in the test as such: on the ballot each party keeps its own emblem, even in a coalition, and parties in the same coalition may think differently on some issues. Which parties run together is explained in the election guide.

If a party loses or gains its national registration before the election, the test will follow the INE’s list. The same criterion applies to every party.

2. Sources of information

The parties’ positions are documented on the basis of public and verifiable sources, giving priority to the parties’ own documents:

• The electoral platform that each party registers with the National Electoral Institute (INE) for the 2027 election, from 1 to 15 January 2027, and, until then, its 2024 platform
• Each party’s basic documents registered with the INE: its declaration of principles and its program of action
• The roll-call votes of each party’s parliamentary group in the Chamber of Deputies (66th Legislature), as recorded in the Parliamentary Gazette
• Public statements by its leaders, cited via the media outlet that reported them when there is no party document

3. Question design

Every question in the test meets these criteria:

• Neutrality: It does not mention parties, candidates or political figures
• Clarity: Accessible language, no jargon
• Relevance: Issues currently debated in Mexican politics and in the 2027 campaign
• Differentiation: It helps distinguish between the parties’ positions

Response scale

We use a 5-point Likert scale:

4. Party positions

For each question, each party is assigned a position (1–5) based on those sources. Currently all positions have the same confidence weight (3) in the calculation: no party is treated differently through weighting.

• Positions with a linked source: They include the specific document that supports them, with its date
• Estimated positions: Inferred from the party’s documents, votes or statements as a whole when we have not found a document that states them explicitly. They are marked as such on the party’s profile

Documenting all 360 positions with a source is a work in progress. Marking what does not yet have one seems more honest to us than presenting everything with the same appearance of precision.

If a party is missing a position

Currently all 8 parties have a position on all 45 questions; those not backed by an explicit document are marked as estimated. If a party were missing a position (when it is added or when a new question is added), it would not be made up: that question would be left out of its calculation.

The number of sourced and estimated positions for each party is shown on its profile.

The same applies to comparisons between two parties: only the questions on which both have a position are compared.

5. Calculation algorithm

Your match with each party is calculated using an algorithm that takes three factors into account:

• Quadratic scale: Large differences of opinion are penalised more than small ones
• Conviction factor: Strong opinions (strongly agree/strongly disagree) carry more weight than moderate ones
• Reduced weight for neutral answers: “Neutral” answers have less impact on the final result

You decide the importance: in the full test you rate from 1 to 5 how much each question matters to you (if you leave it unchanged, it counts as 3); in the quick test they all count as 3. The confidence weight is currently the same (3) for all positions. Your age, your sex and the party you would vote for, if you choose to give them, play no part in calculating your match.

Conviction factor

Your firmest opinions carry more weight in the result:

• Strongly agree / Strongly disagree → Factor 1.0 (maximum weight)
• Agree / Disagree → Factor 0.75
• Neutral → Factor 0.5 (lowest weight)

Example:

• Your answer: 5 (Strongly agree)
• Position of party X: 4 (Agree)
• Confidence weight: 3, Importance: 4
• Difference: |5 - 4| = 1
• Base score: (4 - 1)² = 9
• Conviction factor: 0.5 + (2 × 0.25) = 1.0
• Total weight: 3 × 4 × 1.0 = 12
• Score: 9 × 12 = 108 points
• Maximum possible: 16 × 12 = 192 points
• Match on this question: 108/192 = 56%

Tie-break

The second and sometimes even the third party closest to your answers may end up 3 points or less behind the first: one or two different answers would be enough to change the order. Often these are parties that take almost the same positions on the test questions. When this happens, your result offers you a tie-break with a few more questions.

The questions come from a separate bank, with each party’s position documented in the same way as for the test questions, and they are not part of the main test. For each tie, up to 8 are chosen: those that most separate the tied parties, only from sourced positions (never estimated ones), and only if at least one of them separates the parties by 2 points or more. Your answers are added to the usual calculation for all parties, with normal importance, and the result shows where the parties stood before and where they stand now, with what each one stands for. You can only do the tie-break once. The tie-break does not change your compass or the topic-by-topic comparison, and it does not count in the barometer, which is still based only on the test questions. When parties take almost the same positions on almost everything, few questions separate them, and they may remain tied: we would rather say so than invent differences.

Why not a longer test? Adding more questions of the same kind would barely separate those parties, because two parties only differ on the questions where they think differently, and each pair needs its own. With the tie-break, each person answers only the questions that separate their parties.

6. Political compass

The political compass places your position on two axes:

The test categories are grouped as follows to calculate your position:

• Economic axis: Economy and taxes; Work and pensions; Health and social programs; Energy and environment; Water, farming and indigenous peoples
• Social axis: Education, children and family; Energy and environment (it counts on both axes); United States, trade and migration; Rights and freedoms

Topics that do not count towards the compass

Four topics do not count on the compass: Security and armed forces; Justice and the judiciary; Elections and parties; and Institutions and corruption. In Mexico they do not fit well into the left–right or the progressive–conservative scheme: if they were placed on the social axis, the parties that defend the role of the armed forces in public security would come out as more “conservative” than others that reject it, even where their values point the other way, and the compass would be misleading. Their questions count just like the others towards your match with each party, but they do not move your position on the compass. That is why we stress that the compass is a simplification.

How we calculate your position

To ensure consistency between your match with the parties and your position on the compass, we use a system of automatic polarity:

1. Analysis of each question: For each question, we analyze the positions of reference parties, which differ on each axis: some on the left and some on the right for the economic axis, and some progressive and some conservative for the social axis. A party can be on the left on economic issues and conservative on social ones. The reference parties are: on the economic axis, PT and Morena (left) and PAN and PRI (right); on the social axis, SOMOS and Movimiento Ciudadano (progressive) and PAZ and PAN (conservative). They were chosen from their own documents and checked against their documented positions.
2. Determining polarity: If the left-wing (or progressive) parties have higher positions on a question, answering “strongly agree” moves you towards the left (or the progressive pole). If it is the right-wing (or conservative) parties, it moves you towards the right (or the conservative pole). If the two groups answer a question almost the same way (their averages differ by less than half a point on the 1–5 scale), the direction is unclear: that question does not count towards the compass, only towards your match with the parties.
3. Calculating the score: Your answer is converted to a scale from -100 (left/progressive) to +100 (right/conservative), adjusted for the polarity of each question.
4. Average per axis: Your final position on each axis is the average of all the questions in the corresponding categories.

This system aims to ensure that if you have a high match with a left-wing party, the compass consistently places you on the left, and vice versa (only on the topics that count towards the compass).

7. Limitations

We want to be transparent about the limitations of this test:

• It cannot capture all the nuances of politics
• Party positions may be simplified
• Electoral platforms do not always reflect what parties do once elected
• Some questions may distinguish between parties better than others
• What a party can do also depends on the majorities in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate and on its alliances with other parties, which the test does not take into account
• The test does not take into account parties’ track records in keeping their promises

8. What is published

Everything needed to audit the test is available on the site itself:

• The full list of questions grouped by topic, with an explanation of each one.
• Each party’s position on each question, with its justification and, where available, the document that supports it.
• The calculation algorithm, detailed on this page and explained with a step-by-step numerical example.
• The barometer: how much people who took the test agree with each statement, by state, with its methodology note and the minimum threshold applied. It is not an opinion poll or a survey: it never publishes how people would vote or any figure by party.

Of the 360 positions, 267 currently link to the document that supports them and 93 are marked as estimated.

Revision log

Significant changes to the database of questions and positions:

• 25 October 2026: the 12 two-party comparisons, rewritten with much more original text for each pair: how many statements they share and how many they clash on, the breakdown by issue, the documented reasons behind their clearest agreements and disagreements, what is left out because it is estimated, and the tie-break questions, updated with the positions revised today. They are still not offered to search engines while the rest of the page is reviewed. No position changes.
• 25 October 2026: four positions on health and social programs, reviewed with the same criteria as the rest. Morena (delivering programs through states and municipalities) and the PVEM (federal purchasing of medicines) keep their positions, but they become estimated, because their documents do not address that specific question. Movimiento Ciudadano moves from “strongly disagrees” to “disagrees” on banning vapes, because the two decrees it voted against also covered other matters, and Partido PAZ from “agrees” to “neutral” (estimated). On the compass, Movimiento Ciudadano now sits at +2.9 on the economic axis and PAZ at 0.0.
• 25 October 2026: two justifications clarified, with no position changed. On mining, Movimiento Ciudadano’s April 2026 bill adds new areas to those the law already excludes from concessions (it does not propose banning them where they were already banned). On the minimum wage, the amendment the PVEM voted for in 2024 so that it is never set below inflation cleared the Chamber but is not in the current Constitution.
• 25 October 2026: the site is applying to Google AdSense to show advertising on some content pages. About us, transparency, the FAQ, cookies and privacy explain its rules: ads never appear in the test, in your result or in the comparison tool, they are not chosen using your answers, and political ads are not accepted.
• 25 October 2026: more original text on every page. Each party has a new reading of its positions; each issue, a reading of what divides the parties; and each state guide, its own reading with the INE’s official 2024 results, while what was common to all 32 moves to the main guide. Four new analyses (electoral reform, energy, work and rights), and the party pages drop the automatically generated FAQs. No position changes.
• 25 October 2026: on the issue pages, each party summary refers to the questions by number instead of repeating the statement in every row; the comparisons link to the reasoning behind each position on the party page instead of copying it. No position changes.
• 25 October 2026: the comparisons between two parties are no longer offered to search engines or linked from the party pages while they are rewritten with more original text for each pair; they are still available at their address, and the comparison chart of all the parties is unchanged.
• 25 October 2026: new analysis “The parties and social programs”, on whether they should be for everyone or for those who have least, who delivers them, care at private clinics, buying medicines and vapes, with the 2024 welfare amendment and its votes.
• 25 October 2026: the analysis “Left-wing and right-wing parties in Mexico” now opens by answering which parties are left-wing, with how each describes itself in its documents (quoted and linked) next to its place on the compass.
• 25 October 2026: two positions on the United States topic, using the same criteria as all the others: the PT moves from “strongly disagree” to “disagree” on prioritizing the United States and Canada over Latin America (its platform also calls for maintaining cooperation with the United States), and Partido PAZ from “disagree” to “neutral”, both estimated, on stopping migrants in transit (its documents do not address it). On the compass, the PT moves to −33.3 on the social axis and PAZ to +30.0; the analyses with those figures have been updated.
• 25 October 2026: new analysis “Mexico’s parties and the United States”, on tariffs on China, relations with North America and Latin America, migrants in transit and workers under the USMCA, with the December 2025 vote on tariffs.
• 25 October 2026: Partido PAZ’s position on the tie-break statement on the general effect of amparo rulings changes from “agree” to “neutral”, both estimated: its documents do not address the question. The judicial reform analysis now also cites the text of the Amparo Law amendment published on 16 October 2025.
• 25 October 2026: new analysis “The parties and the judicial reform”, with the timeline from the Official Gazette (2024, 2025 and the 2026 amendment that moved the judicial election to 2028) and the Chamber’s votes. Reviewing its sources changed six parties’ positions on the tie-break statement on the general effect of amparo rulings, because of the text of Article 107 voted in 2024: Morena and the PVEM, from “disagree” (estimated) to “strongly disagree”; the PT, from “agree” to “neutral”; the PAN and the PRI, from “neutral” (estimated) to “agree”; and Movimiento Ciudadano stays at “agree”, now with a source.
• 25 October 2026: the Partido PAZ profile now says it is chaired by Hugo Eric Flores Cervantes, elected on 22 August 2026, according to the INE register of party governing bodies. For SOMOS, we checked that the INE approved its new emblem (resolution INE/CG550/2026); its positions do not change.
• 25 October 2026: the political compass page explains how it differs from the ideology tests circulating on social media; the English version now uses US spelling throughout (the reasoning behind positions will be unified with the January review). The test and the positions do not change.
• 25 October 2026: each state guide now lists its federal electoral districts with the seat of each one (agreement INE/CG875/2022), the state’s electoral roll as of 15 October 2026 (INE) and polling hours in its time zone (Time Zones Act), with its own frequently asked questions. The test does not change.
• 25 October 2026: more precise wording about sources (every position has its reasoning; the source where one exists, and the rest are marked as estimated, with the count on each party page and on the About page); key facts in the election guide, with new questions on the judicial election (moved to 2028), the Senate, re-election and the PRD; new page on the 17 governorships; summary table on each state guide; clearer titles on party, topic and analysis pages; review time for corrections (72 working hours; 48 during the campaign); printable worksheet for teachers and printable comparison table. The test and the positions do not change.
• 25 October 2026: new state guide, one page per state with what is on the ballot there on 6 June 2027 (federal districts, governor, local congress, municipal councils or borough mayors), the local electoral body and voting from abroad, using INE data. No polls and no names of hopefuls. The test does not change.
• 25 October 2026: the election guide now says at the top what is elected on 6 June 2027 and has a new section, “Where do I vote and who are my candidates?”, with the INE’s official look-up tools; new questions and answers (the 17 governorships, “plurinominal” deputies, which party represents me) and, on the SOMOS and Partido PAZ profiles, who founded them and when they were registered. Comparisons are now titled by their differences and common ground. The test does not change.
• 25 October 2026: clearer titles for people searching from Mexico: the home page names Mexico, the table of all parties is presented as a comparison chart (cuadro comparativo) and the election guide is described as a midterm election. The test does not change.
• 25 October 2026: seven signed analyses (the parties from left to right, the compass, where they agree, security, how the match is calculated, how the 500 deputies are elected and why the barometer is not an opinion poll), a written summary for the 12 pairwise comparisons (based only on sourced positions) and a reading of each party’s positions on its page, each checked separately before publication. On this page, the compass section now names its reference parties and the topics on each axis (the calculation is unchanged). The explanation of the question on pretrial detention is more precise (the constitutional amendment of November 2024). No position changes.
• 24 October 2026: website published for the 6 June 2027 federal election to the Chamber of Deputies, in Spanish and English. The test has 45 statements (20 in the quick test) and 15 tie-break questions; the positions of the 8 nationally registered parties are based on their election platforms and founding documents, their public statements and the votes of their group in the Chamber of Deputies. 343 of the 480 positions link to the document they come from; the other 137 are marked as estimated. Those of SOMOS and PAZ, newly registered parties, are provisional until they present their 2027 platforms.

9. Contact and corrections

If you spot an error in the parties’ positions or have suggestions for improving the methodology, contact us at contacto@afinidadpolitica.mx.

We particularly value comments that include verifiable sources.