About this election
The 2015 Argentine presidential election was a watershed: for the first time in the country's history, the presidency was decided by a run-off (ballotage), and for the first time in a generation a non-Peronist, non-Radical force won the Casa Rosada. Mauricio Macri, the centre-right mayor of Buenos Aires and leader of the Cambiemos coalition, defeated the governing Front for Victory (Frente para la Victoria) candidate Daniel Scioli in a close second round, ending twelve years of Kirchnerism under Néstor and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
The president of Argentina is elected by a distinctive two-round system: a candidate wins outright with more than 45% of the valid votes, or with more than 40% and a lead of at least ten points over the runner-up; otherwise the top two contest a run-off. The president serves a four-year term and may be re-elected once consecutively. Open, simultaneous and compulsory primaries (the PASO) had been held in August, and voting is compulsory for citizens aged 18 to 70.
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was constitutionally barred from a third consecutive term, so the Front for Victory nominated Daniel Scioli, the governor of Buenos Aires Province, who promised continuity with a softer edge. Macri ran on change — orthodox economics, an opening to the world and an end to currency controls — after building Cambiemos from his PRO party, the Radical Civic Union and the Civic Coalition. Sergio Massa, a dissident Peronist, ran third at the head of the United for a New Alternative (UNA) front.
In the first round on 25 October, Scioli led with 37.08% to Macri's 34.15% — a much narrower margin than the polls had predicted, and well short of the figure Scioli needed to avoid a run-off. Massa took 21.39%, Nicolás del Caño of the Workers' Left Front 3.23%, Margarita Stolbizer 2.51% and Adolfo Rodríguez Saá 1.64%. In the run-off on 22 November, Macri won 51.34% to Scioli's 48.66%, a margin of about 680,000 votes. Turnout was 81.07% in the first round and 80.77% in the second.
Macri took office in December 2015 and moved quickly to lift currency and export controls, settle with holdout creditors and reorient foreign policy. But his government struggled with persistent inflation and, by 2018, a currency crisis that forced a record IMF stand-by loan — problems that would define his single term and set up the Peronist return in 2019.
The first-round map showed Peronism's enduring grip on the north and much of the interior, where Scioli led in most provinces, against Macri's strength in the wealthier, more urban districts. In the run-off Macri carried the populous, decisive districts — the City of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires Province, Córdoba, Santa Fe and Mendoza — which outweighed Scioli's wins across a larger number of smaller, northern provinces.
Official results from Argentina's Cámara Nacional Electoral / Dirección Nacional Electoral (resultados.gob.ar). Vote shares are of valid votes; the maps are coloured by the leading ticket in each province, with the full breakdown on click.
Compiled and reviewed by Bartłomiej Paruzel, Election Data Analyst, from official results. See our data methodology.