Image via CIPER
Introduction and Context
On November 16, 2025, Chileans will vote for their next president in one of the country’s most polarized elections in recent history. Like much of the region, the country is grappling with rising insecurity, persistent unemployment, stubborn inflation, and sluggish economic growth. Chile’s choice will not only shape the nation’s future but also influence regional political currents, and, like other recent elections in Latin America, the vote will be a local expression of global issues including polarization, crime, migration, and the cost of living.
The 2019 social uprisings set off Chile’s constitutional experiment, but after years of debate and two failed drafts, the populace has been left with deep political fatigue and a desire for order and normalcy. The Chilean economy has also slowed. GDP grew only 2.6% in 2024, following a decade of modest average annual growth of around 2% between 2014 and 2023, down from 4.2% in the 2000s and 6.2% in the 1990s.1 Investment fell by 1.4%, and unemployment hovered at 9%. Taken together, political exhaustion and economic stagnation have created a fragile consensus: Chile’s system needs reform, but voters are wary of ambitious transformations.
The Candidates – Profiles
The race is closed with eight participants competing for Chile’s presidency. This is the most polarized election Chile has seen in the last decade, marked by clashes between extremes while the center struggles to stay relevant.
José Antonio Kast (Republican Party) leads most polls with 28-30%. A lawyer and former UDI deputy, he broke away to form the Republicans and has become the main voice of the far right. His message is to restore order through “mano dura” security policies, mega-prisons, and military deployment, while reactivating the economy with tax cuts and deregulation.
Jeannette Jara (Unidad por Chile, Communist Party) is close behind, polling at 27-28%. A lawyer and public administrator, she served as Minister of Labor under Boric, where she pushed through the 40-hour workweek and a pension reform proposal. She presents herself as pragmatic and “dialogante”, framing security as a social right and defending a stronger state role in investment and regulation.
Evelyn Matthei (Chile Vamos, UDI) currently polls between 14 and 17%. With a career as deputy, senator, minister, and mayor of Providencia, she is the candidate of the traditional center-right. She projects competence and stability, offering investment in innovation and a technocratic style meant to contrast with polarization, but still faces the challenge of mobilizing her base while appealing to swing voters.
Franco Parisi (Partido de la Gente) polls between 7 and 11%. An economist and academic, he is again running as the outsider, relying on digital campaigning and anti-elite rhetoric. His base comes from voters frustrated with traditional politics, but his lack of organization continues to limit his chances.The other four candidates are Johannes Kaiser (National Libertarian Party), Marco Enríquez Ominami (Independent), Harold Mayne Nicholls (Independent) and Eduardo Artés (Independent). Each of these candidates currently polls below 10%.2
What Voters Want – Agenda Drivers
The environment today is very different from when Boric was elected, as optimism has given way to anxiety over crime, migration, and economic stagnation. Two words define Chile’s 2025 electoral priorities: security and growth.3
Security has emerged as the undisputed driver of the campaign. Rising crime, narcotrafficking networks, and daily perceptions of disorder have pushed it to the top of every survey.
Migration is also a major focus. Chile is no exception to the regional trend of irregular migration. Numbers have increased sharply in recent years, with more than a 16% rise in irregular migrants living in the country from 2018 to 2023. The state does not have a precise count of how many migrants have entered, and among the populace, a sense of losing control at the borders, combined with rising crime, has made migration one of the most sensitive issues of the election. For voters, the issue is not only about statistics — it’s related to security, jobs, and cultural change. Kast promises expulsions, stricter border controls, and even military deployment, while Kaiser pushes this even further with libertarian anti-state rhetoric. Matthei, aware she needs moderates, has focused on regulation and integration rather than mass expulsions. Jara, by contrast, argues for regularization and institutional management framed by human rights.
Alongside security and migration, the economy is the other defining pillar of this election. After more than a decade of weak growth, many Chileans feel the country has lost its momentum. Inflation and unemployment add to everyday frustration. Kast and his allies argue for tax cuts, deregulation, and foreign investment. Matthei presents herself as the candidate of competence and order, promising stability, clear rules, and innovation. Jara promotes a more active state, pointing to strategic investment and public-private partnerships to deliver social rights.
In the end, what voters want is straightforward: safety in their neighborhoods, control of borders, and an economy that creates opportunities again. The question is which version of leadership — hardline, pragmatic, or state-led — they will trust to deliver it.
What to Watch Between Now and Election Day
With less than one month until Election Day, the race is tight, and much could change before voters cast their ballots. The main contest is between Jara, the Communist Party candidate backed by a wide coalition, and Kast, the Republican leader who already made it to a runoff in 2021. Matthei, despite her experience and strong debate performance, is still polling third.
At the same time, some structural dynamics are harder to shake. As Camilo Feres, director of Azerta and political analyst, explains, “The current government’s support is stable at around 30%, the same level that Jeannette Jara has held throughout the campaign. On the other side, close to 60% of voters consistently prefer opposition candidates. That structural balance makes a second-round win for the right the base scenario, and it would take a shock of very high magnitude — a scandal or unforeseen crisis — to change it.”
Upcoming debates and news events will be decisive — not because they always shift numbers overnight, but because they shape momentum in a race where every decimal point counts. The first televised clash set the tone. Kast and Jara traded blows over bots and disinformation, while Matthei projected discipline and optimism. Polls barely moved afterward (Jara held around 27%, Kast 29%, Matthei 17%) yet the debate crystallized their roles: Kast as the combative frontrunner, Jara as the disciplined incumbent voice, and Matthei as the competent alternative. Still, with margins this narrow, a single shock, such as a security crisis, an inflation spike, or a migration headline, could easily redefine the campaign’s closing stretch.
Beyond the presidency, Congress will determine governability. A split among right-wing parties — running on separate lists4 — has weakened their chances of forming a majority, giving the left a structural advantage. Political scientist Patricio Navia explains, “Chile’s proportional representation system rewards the coalition that ends up with the first plurality, and that means that if the left secures that relative majority, it will obtain a higher percentage of seats than it would otherwise get if the right, which is projected to win more than 50% of the legislative vote, were running on a single list.” A divided right could therefore yield the left more seats even if it wins fewer votes.
Turnout will also matter. This is Chile’s first compulsory presidential election, bringing older abstainers back to the polls and introducing a new factor: the Venezuelan vote. Between 2017 and 2019, Chile experienced an unprecedented demographic shift as more than 440,000 Venezuelans arrived, and by 2021 they accounted for over one-third of the country’s foreign-born population. Under Chilean law, migrants are automatically enrolled to vote after five years of residency, meaning their political influence is rapidly expanding. In 2021, only 16,000 Venezuelans were eligible to vote; today, that number exceeds 237,000, or 22% of all foreign electors — a fourteenfold increase in just four years. With this growth, they have become Chile’s largest foreign voting bloc, surpassing the quantity of voters in entire regions such as Arica or Aysén.
This scale makes them a decisive electorate, particularly in districts with high migrant concentrations, where the 2024 local and regional elections already showed their ability to tilt outcomes. Many Venezuelan migrants, shaped by their experience under a left-wing populist and authoritarian regime, carry strong anti-Chavista sentiment. Much like Cuban voters in Florida, their experience has led to an unexpected alignment with Chile’s right-wing parties, despite those parties’ traditionally hardline stance on immigration. The Venezuelan bloc is unlikely to back radical left candidates such as Jeannette Jara, and their turnout could prove decisive not only in the presidential race but also in the 2025 parliamentary elections.
Institutional rules have now been settled, at least on paper. Congress recently approved reforms tightening residency requirements for foreign voters and reinstating fines for Chileans who fail to vote. Both are still pending Constitutional Court review, but for now, the large bloc of Venezuelan migrants who recently gained voting rights will still be able to participate in November.
Late endorsements and pacts between parties are still on the table. The centrist space is fragmented, but groups like Demócratas and Amarillos could become kingmakers, either by backing Matthei or through post-first round deals. In Latin America, such alignments have decided recent elections, from Argentina’s shift to the right in 2023 to Ecuador’s coalitions that reshaped runoffs.
Regional battlegrounds will also be influential. Santiago’s periphery could decide the runoff, as crime and social fragmentation are most acute there. The north of the country, defined by border crises and migration flows, leans right, while the south, marked by rural violence and territorial disputes, remains unpredictable.
Conclusion
Chile is facing a crucial election, and the issues that dominate this race, namely security, migration, and the cost of living, are the same questions that are reshaping politics across Latin America and beyond. What happens on November 16 will not only decide Chile’s next president, it will also signal whether the country leans into the extremes or pulls back toward the center. Chile once again finds itself at a crossroads, and the choice its voters make will echo well beyond its borders.
Victoria Flowerree is a Chilean Columbia University graduate in political science who works in strategic communications in New York.
Juan Diego Solis De Ovando holds a degree in political science from Boston College, previously worked as a program associate at Global Americans, and is currently pursuing a master’s in administration and strategy at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez.
- World Bank, World Development Indicators ↩︎
- https://elpais.com/chile/2025-08-18/quienes-son-los-ocho-candidatos-para-las-elecciones-presidenciales-en-chile-2025.html ↩︎
- https://stratnewsglobal.com/team-sng/security-and-stability-take-center-stage-as-chiles-presidential-race-kicks-off/ ↩︎
- https://www.infobae.com/america/america-latina/2025/04/22/la-derecha-chilena-ira-dividida-a-las-elecciones-presidenciales-de-noviembre/ ↩︎
