Colombia goes to the polls on May 31 to elect a successor to President Gustavo Petro, the country’s first left-wing president since independence in 1810, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a second consecutive term. Twenty days out, left-wing senator Iván Cepeda holds a commanding lead. The question hanging over the race is not whether Cepeda will finish first. It is whether the right can stop fighting itself long enough to stop him in a runoff.
A Three-Way Race With Two Contests Inside It
Colombia’s presidential election has effectively split into two parallel competitions: one between Cepeda and whichever conservative makes it to the second round on June 21, and another between the two conservatives — Abelardo De la Espriella and Paloma Valencia — for the right to face him.
Cepeda, the Pacto Histórico senator backed by Petro’s political machine, leads every credible poll published since January. The most recent Invamer survey, conducted for Noticias Caracol and Blu Radio and published April 26, places him at 44.3% of voting intention — a significant jump from 37.1% in February. His gains are broad-based, with particularly strong momentum among voters aged 20 to 30 and expanded support across all regions of the country.
Trailing behind, but still within reach of a second-round berth, are Abelardo De la Espriella at 21.5% and Paloma Valencia at 19.8%. The gap between them is the race within the race.
De la Espriella — a criminal defense lawyer and self-described outsider, nicknamed “the tiger” by his supporters — has positioned himself as Colombia’s answer to Javier Milei, with hard-right stances on security, an anti-establishment posture, and a campaign built on social media. Valencia, a Democratic Center senator and protégée of former President Álvaro Uribe, has nearly doubled her support from 10% in February and is now the fastest-rising candidate in the field.
Both candidates have pledged to support each other in a second round if they make it. The problem is that each wants the other to be the one who steps aside.
The Runoff Math
The stakes of who faces Cepeda in the second round are not trivial. Polling by Invamer paints a clear picture of the difference it makes.
In a hypothetical Cepeda versus De la Espriella runoff, Cepeda wins 54.6% to 42.6% — a comfortable margin. In a hypothetical Cepeda versus Valencia runoff, the margin narrows sharply to 51.2% versus 46.6%. Valencia outperforms De la Espriella in capturing second-choice preferences across the political center, including former supporters of centrist candidates Claudia López and Sergio Fajardo, both of whom have effectively collapsed out of contention.
The implication is straightforward: De la Espriella is a better candidate for Cepeda’s chances in a runoff. Valencia is a worse one. And yet De la Espriella currently holds second place.
A weighted average of polls published by the Congressional Research Service suggests Cepeda could narrowly lose to Valencia in a runoff, while defeating De la Espriella — which means the right’s best path to the presidency runs through Valencia, and the right is currently not taking it.
Security Crisis Reshapes the Campaign
Any discussion of this election that does not account for the security situation is incomplete.
On April 25, a bomb planted on a bus detonated on the Pan-American Highway in the municipality of Cajibío, Cauca department, killing 20 people — 15 women and 5 men — and wounding 36 others, including five children. Colombian authorities blamed the Estado Mayor Central, a FARC dissident faction led by Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández, known as Iván Mordisco, which broke from peace talks with the Petro government in April 2024. It was one of the deadliest attacks on Colombian civilians since the FARC bombed a Bogotá nightclub in 2003.
The bombing was not an isolated incident. According to peace research institute Indepaz, the first four months of 2026 recorded 48 massacres and 249 deaths — the highest pre-electoral toll in a decade. Armed groups are active in more than 700 municipalities. Former transparency secretary Camilo Enciso has called the situation an “absolute collapse of citizen security,” with Cauca, La Guajira, and Nariño described as effectively captured by organized crime.
The political response has been swift, if predictable. De la Espriella has called for allowing U.S. troop interventions on Colombian soil. Valencia has proposed a modernized version of Plan Colombia, the bilateral U.S.-Colombia security framework that was defined the early 2000s under the right-wing Uribe administration. Cepeda — who supports the continuation of Petro’s “total peace” negotiations with armed groups — finds himself defending an approach that a large share of the electorate has concluded has failed.
Crime and violence top voter concerns heading into election day, according to multiple surveys. That dynamic, in theory, favors the right. Whether the right can consolidate around a single candidate before May 31 is the question the violence makes more urgent.
The Constitutional Assembly Wildcard
The election’s stakes extended beyond a change in personnel when Petro took to a May Day rally on May 1 to announce that he would deliver a draft proposal for a Constitutional Assembly by July 20 — the date the new Congress convenes. Cepeda endorsed the idea. Every other major candidate rejected it.
A Constitutional Assembly in Colombia would require a popular referendum, and its outcome would be deeply uncertain. But the signal from Petro — and Cepeda’s alignment with it — has given opposition campaigns a new line of attack: a vote for Cepeda is a vote for rewriting the constitutional order. Whether that framing takes hold in the remaining 20 days may determine the shape of the runoff more than any individual poll.
Washington Is Watching... Washington Is Always Watching
Colombia is the United States’ top security partner in Latin America, and the outcome of this election matters directly to U.S. foreign policy in the region — a fact that resonates sharply among the Colombian diaspora in Miami.
Under Petro, U.S.-Colombian relations reached their lowest point in decades. In September 2025, the State Department revoked Petro’s visa, and the Treasury Department sanctioned him under counternarcotics authorities, citing Colombia’s failure to meet its drug eradication commitments.
The Petro years have coincided with record cocaine production and a deterioration of the security cooperation arrangements — including intelligence sharing and anti-narcotics certification — that defined the bilateral relationship for two decades.
Both De la Espriella and Valencia have explicitly pledged to join the Trump administration’s Americas Counter Cartel Coalition. Cepeda, while regarded by U.S. officials as less confrontational than Petro, has backed Petro’s security policies — including the total peace framework — and his election would likely leave bilateral tensions intact, with a realistic possibility of further sanctions or diplomatic pressure from Washington.
The National Electoral Council has accredited 86 U.S. embassy observers under Resolution 2090, marking the first time the United States has directly observed a Colombian presidential election.
The Prediction Markets Diverge
One data point worth watching: as of May 8, betting markets Kalshi and Polymarket showed De la Espriella overtaking Cepeda in projected win probability — a notable divergence from conventional polls, which still place Cepeda comfortably in front.
The likely explanation is not that the polls are wrong but that they are old. Colombian electoral law imposes strict regulations on the publication of voter intention surveys; the most recent authorized polls were conducted no later than April 30, leaving prediction market traders to price in more than a week of new information — including the April 25 bombing — that pollsters have not yet been able to capture.
Whether the security crisis has moved voters toward the harder-right De la Espriella, as traders appear to be betting, will only become clear when new polling is authorized for publication.
20 Days Left
The first round is May 31. A runoff, which is effectively certain, follows on June 21. The new president takes office on August 7 for a single non-renewable four-year term.
In the 20 days remaining, the race has three dominant variables: whether De la Espriella or Valencia consolidates the conservative vote; whether the security crisis continues to escalate and who it benefits; and whether Cepeda’s ceiling holds or breaks — a candidate who leads with 44% in one poll but under 40% in three others has not yet demonstrated that he can win outright.
Colombia’s democracy has absorbed enormous pressure in recent years — the assassination of a presidential candidate during this campaign cycle, more than 60 political and community leaders killed during the campaign period, and an unprecedented level of pre-electoral violence.
What happens on May 31 will test whether it can absorb one more.
Sociedad Media will continue to cover Colombia’s presidential election through the first round on May 31 and the expected runoff on June 21.
