Peru: Fujimori keeps her lead, second place is tied

PERU - In Brief 08 Apr 2026 by Alfredo Thorne

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Two more polls have been released since Sunday, one from Ipsos on Tuesday, and another from Datum today. In both polls, Keiko Fujimori from Fuerza Popular leads, and news was that Ricardo Belmont from Obras has taken the second position.  Interesting, Datum calculated a simulacrum of the election asking the respondents to fill a fake election ballot in a simulated boot on April 6th and 7th. It is interesting because the results between the ordinary and simulacrum poll changed. Keiko still leads but the percentage of the total votes fell to 13% from 15.6%, then the second place is tied between Belmont with 8.7%, Carlos Álvarez with 8.5% and Lopez de Aliaga with 7.6%, these are also lower than those calculated with simple poll which were 9.6%, 9.3% and 9.5%, respectively. The only candidate that experienced an increase in the simulacrum is the leftist Roberto Sánchez reaching 5.3%, higher than the 4% in the ordinary poll. According to Datum this is evidence that there is a hidden vote favoring this candidate. Most of his votes result from rural areas and according to the polls, the undecided vote in the rural areas reached 17%. Assuming that all these votes are captured by Sanchez—an extreme assumption, he can increase its share to 8.3%, close to the group that are in second place, but not enough to win the election. According to Datum, they have undertaken a new poll and are working on the results. In this unpublished poll, Belmont slips, Alvarez gains, and Lopez de Aliaga keeps falling. Although these are still preliminary results, it seems that Keiko and Alvarez may move on to the second round. Another interesting development is the Senate vote. Still they cannot calc...