Claudia Sheinbaum, a 62-year-old physicist-turned-politician, became Mexico’s first woman and first Jewish head of state when she won a landslide victory in June 2024 and took office on Oct. 1 of that year. Born in Mexico City to scientist parents, she earned degrees in physics and energy engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and conducted post-graduate climate research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. Sheinbaum later joined the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, contributing to reports that earned the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. That academic pedigree and her early career as an environmental engineer earned her a reputation as a methodical, policy-focused technocrat before she ever entered politics.
Her political career began with student activism and service under then-Mexico City mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). From 2000 to 2005, Sheinbaum served as the city’s secretary of the environment under López Obrador, who took her under his wing after her work in academia. In that role, she oversaw major infrastructure projects like the introduction of the Metrobus system and road expansions, earning her both praise for modernization and some criticism over construction accidents. After AMLO’s failed presidential bid in 2006, she returned to UNAM and focused on climate change mitigation, helping prepare U.N. climate assessments before re-entering politics as the elected mayor of the Tlalpan borough in 2015.
Sheinbaum’s tenure as a local leader culminated in her historic election in 2018 as the first female (and first Jewish) head of Mexico City’s government. As Mexico City’s mayor (2018–2023), she pursued progressive policies on sustainability and public services. Her administration expanded rainwater harvesting, reformed urban waste management, and began an ambitious reforestation campaign, all while pledging massive investment to modernize the city’s aging subway system. These initiatives endeared her to many voters who saw her as carrying on López Obrador’s social agenda. At the same time, critics questioned her oversight of controversial infrastructure projects, including a fatal subway accident in 2021 and others in 2023.
During her mayoralty, Sheinbaum cultivated a public image as both a hands-on reformer and loyal ally of López Obrador’s leftist Morena party. In 2023 she resigned as mayor to enter the presidential race, positioning herself as the ideological heir to AMLO’s so-called “Fourth Transformation” of Mexican society. Her campaign emphasized continuity of AMLO-era social programs and a green agenda: she pledged universal healthcare, expanded education, a transition to renewable energy, and a tough stance against corruption. In June 2024 she won a commanding 60% of the vote (a landslide in Mexico) to become president-elect. The election result gave Morena and its allies a supermajority in Congress, setting the stage for ambitious legislative changes.
Within weeks of taking office, President Sheinbaum embarked on a wave of reforms. True to her campaign promise, she advanced significant constitutional amendments and new ministries that reflected her progressive vision. Legislators controlled by Morena approved dozens of reforms, including a September 2024 overhaul that folded the National Guard fully into the military and set the stage for electing judges by popular vote. The administration also rewrote Article 21 of the Constitution to enhance a new Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection, and created cabinet posts for Women; Science, Technology and Innovation; and Anticorruption and Good Governance. Meanwhile, Sheinbaum has used her traditional daily press conferences to propose sweeping social changes, for example, she sent ten constitutional amendments on Oct. 3, 2024, to enshrine gender equality, equal pay, and paid maternity leave, and to establish a new federal Secretariat for Women’s Affairs. These moves earned broad applause among feminists and progressive voters, who celebrated the promise of more profound transformation under Mexico’s first woman president.
All the while, public opinion polls indicate Sheinbaum remains extremely popular. As of spring 2025, her approval ratings hovered between roughly 70% and 80% in multiple surveys. A May 2025 poll for El Financiero showed 81% of respondents approved of her performance, the highest since she assumed office and a Mitofsky/El Economista survey gave her 70.2%. By June, El Economista reported her April approval at 70.4%, up nearly 9 points from the 61.5% measured on Inauguration Day. Analysts note that women, young people, and less-educated voters have given her exceptionally high marks. In short, many Mexicans appear to welcome Sheinbaum’s government and its emphasis on social welfare, gender parity, and national sovereignty.
Yet this popularity is shadowed by growing concerns about a potential erosion of democratic checks and balances. Within her first months in office, Sheinbaum’s administration and its congressional allies have pressed ahead with reforms critics say consolidate power. Chief among these is the new judicial election reform, a change López Obrador pushed in his last days and which Sheinbaum’s allies approved into law in September 2024. The reform would make Mexico the only country to elect most judges, from municipal magistrates up to Supreme Court justices, in direct popular votes. Proponents argue this would break the corrupt status quo. Still, opponents warn it hands near-total control of the courts to Morena since judges elected on party tickets would depend on the ruling coalition. Indeed, opposition parties, human rights groups, and even some unionized judges have denounced the judicial election law as a “fraudulent” spectacle that undermines judicial independence. For example, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Judiciary warned the change risks empowering criminal groups to influence the judiciary.
The backlash peaked in May and June 2025, when Mexico held its first-ever nationwide judicial elections. Voter turnout was a mere 13%, and more than half the ballots were annulled or left blank, according to observers. Critics attributed the dismal turnout to widespread confusion and skepticism; NGOs documented irregularities like pre-printed “cheat sheets” handed to favored voters and even reports of snack-size “wafer” lists of candidates being eaten to hide evidence. Opposition leaders boycotted or derided the vote. At the same time, Sheinbaum insisted the low turnout did not invalidate the result. The Legislature then rammed through another amendment to strip the Supreme Court of any power to block constitutional reforms, a direct challenge to judicial review. By early June, Sheinbaum was publicly lambasting the Organization of American States for criticizing the election as flawed. In one presidential press conference she scolded foreign observers for “trying to tell other countries how to choose their judicial power.” She reminded them that fewer than half of eligible voters had even shown interest in the race.
The Supreme Court itself has pushed back. In October 2024, just weeks into Sheinbaum’s term, Mexico’s nine justices began considering challenges to the judicial reform law. The president accused the Court of “trying to change what the people decided,” setting up a showdown that Mexican jurists warned could plunge the country into uncharted constitutional crisis. Indeed, the Legislature pre-empted the Court by banning it from ruling on any future constitutional amendments. Legal scholars have noted flatly that a president facing a contrary high-court decision will soon have to decide whether to uphold the rule of law or ignore it, a decision without modern precedent in Mexico. Meanwhile, the president’s supporters dismiss alarm as reactionary. When a federal judge halted her signature pension reform, Sheinbaum brushed it off and told opponents not to denounce ‘a dictatorship’ every time Congress passes reforms that “the people” support.
The pattern is clear: Morena now dominates executive, legislative, and potentially judicial branches. Sheinbaum’s government has also dissolved autonomous oversight agencies created in the 1990s and absorbed dozens of independent bodies into the presidency. For example, President López Obrador had already targeted and shrunk the free-information institute (INAI), the telecom regulator (IFT), and others; Sheinbaum’s administration has largely let those changes stand. In May 2025 the administration also quietly unveiled an expansive telecom “reform” empowering a new Digital Transformation agency under direct presidential control, a move one former regulator called “discretionary” and possibly censorial. Such measures have triggered harsh warnings from former Mexican presidents and foreign governments alike. President Ernesto Zedillo (1994–2000) wrote that “our young democracy has been murdered” by these initiatives. The United States embassy even publicly warned that some of Sheinbaum’s changes to judicial elections and free speech were “more likely to undermine” democracy than help it.
At the same time, Sheinbaum relishes her image as a reformist champion. She and her allies note that none of her policies curtail political rights. Newspapers still criticize her, opposition parties campaign freely, and unemployment is falling (though crime remains high). Moreover, her government continues popular AMLO-era social programs, such as universal pensions and scholarships, and is rolling out new ones. This spring, she announced plans for free public childcare and extended care clinics for older adults. Sheinbaum also took a firm stance on foreign affairs to bolster national sovereignty. When President Trump named Mexican cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations” in early 2025, she unflinchingly rejected any unilateral U.S. action while proposing constitutional amendments to ban foreigners from domestic arms trafficking. As she put it, Mexico will cooperate against criminal gangs, but “in their territory, we in ours,” insisting that no foreign boots will patrol Mexican soil without full approval. These stands have won her bipartisan praise at home for defending sovereignty, even as they risk confrontation in Washington.
In sum, Claudia Sheinbaum’s presidency is unfolding in stark dualities. On the one hand, she remains extraordinarily popular. She is enacting a bold, progressive agenda on women’s rights, education, and climate change. Her personal story, that of a physicist who became a champion of the “people’s transformation,” continues to inspire many Mexicans. On the other hand, her government’s consolidation of legislative power, aggressive curtailment of judicial review, and centralization of regulatory agencies have fed accusations that Mexico is sliding back toward a competitive-authoritarian model. As one observer put it, Sheinbaum’s tone may be softer than López Obrador’s. Still, her government has nonetheless adopted its predecessor’s most contentious “reforms,” raising fears that Mexico’s 100-year-old constitutional order is being eroded. Whether Sheinbaum can balance those visions, remaining a popular agent of change without trampling democratic guardrails, will be one of the defining questions of her six-year term.
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