YOUNG governor Samuel Garcia, 35, who prides himself on having brought Tesla to his Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, entered the country’s presidential race yesterday.  

Garcia officially submitted his candidacy for the centre-leftist Citizens’ Movement ahead of general elections on June 2 next year.  

The party governs two states out of 32 in Mexico, hosting the country’s second and third largest cities – Guadalajara in Jalisco and Monterrey in Nuevo Leon, on the border with Texas.  

“Today the centennials (people born between 1997 and 2012) and the millennials (between 1981 and 1996); we are 57% of the country,” Garcia said after depositing his candidacy with his wife and eight-month-old daughter in Mexico City.  

“If young people go to vote, we are not going to win, we are going to obliterate everything,” he told supporters who had gathered shouting, “President, president!”  

Garcia joins two other contenders to have announced their candidacy so far: Mexico City ex-mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, 61, representing the governing leftist Morena party, and senator Xochitl Galvez, 60, who has the support of a bloc of opposition parties.  

Sheinbaum is in the lead with 46% of voter intention, according to a poll last month by the El Financiero newspaper, followed by Galvez with 28% and Garcia with 8%.  

In February, Garcia announced on social media, with a photo of him next to Elon Musk, that Tesla would open a gigafactory in Monterrey. Construction has not yet started. – AFP, November 13, 2023.