Six months before the first round, leftist Senator Iván Cepeda is consolidating his early favoritism in Colombia’s presidential race. Leading the polls ahead of the 2026 elections, the ruling historic charter candidate distances himself from a large field of candidates to succeed Gustavo Petro In the latest Invamer study, released on Sunday by Noticias Caracol, a 31.9% vote intention rate among those surveyed said they would vote. This is only the third public measurement since the end of a controversial, multi-month ban imposed by a new law on surveys. In second place is the far-right candidate Abelardo de la Esprilla, with 18.2%, and in third place is the centrist candidate Sergio Fajardo, the former mayor of Medellin, with 8.5%.
In a very crowded and fragmented campaign, the poll measured 30 names, only eight of which scored above 2% and only seven exceeded the 2.3% margin of error on this question. After Cepeda, de la Espriilla, and Fajardo, comes Miguel Uribe Londoño, the father of the murdered Senator Miguel Uribe Torbay, the former candidate for the right-wing Democratic Center Party, with 4.2%, and another representative of the so-called political center, Claudia Lopez, the former mayor of Bogota who ran to obtain signatures, with 4.1%. They are followed by the former director of the magazine week Vicky Davila (3.7%), former Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón (2.9%) and former Vice President Germán Vargas Lleras (2.1%). 4.5% of those consulted who confirmed that they would vote chose to vote blank. Invamer conducted 3,800 surveys in 148 municipalities in Colombia between November 15 and 27; The voting intention question reflects the opinion of the 2,080 people who said they would definitely or probably vote.
In hypothetical runoff scenarios, Cepeda leads Fajardo by a narrow margin, 48.9% for the leftist senator compared to 46.4% for the former Medellin mayor. Cepeda more comfortably leads de la Espriilla, with 59.1% for the historic charter representative and 36.2% for the hardline candidate. If the second round had been between Fajardo and de la Espriilla, the center would have received 51.7% and the criminal lawyer would have received 38.9%. In each of them, the numbers are limited to those most likely to vote, leaving aside a percentage of people who are undecided.
The gradual return to the polls has begun to clear the landscape of an exceptionally crowded presidential race, with dozens of front-runners awaiting the decision of multiple blocs and alliances. The controversial ban on publishing measures of voting intention, which had been in effect since July, ended with the arrival of November.
The Left is the only bloc that already has a firm presidential candidate, after Cepeda won power in the eventful popular consultation on the historic charter on October 26th. The ruling party’s original plan is to measure itself through another inter-party consultation, the one called the Broad Front, which has not yet been finalised, to get a single candidate in the first presidential round that brings together different sectors of the centre-left. This consultation between the parties, like the consultations of the other blocs that decide this, will coincide with the legislative elections on March 8, which precede the first round on May 31. None of Cepeda’s potential contenders in that consultation exceed 1% voting intention according to the Infamer scale.
The results coincide with some trends already seen in previous surveys. Cepeda, De la Espriella and Fajardo emerged above the others at the beginning of November in the first poll published after the ban, a poll conducted by Cifras y Conceptos. This long-awaited study measured dozens of candidates across different blocs and potential alliances. The main conclusion was that these three candidates constitute a group of “runaways” for the peloton, in a metaphor taken from cycling. After filtering the groups, each one showed an overall vote structure of between 9 and 13%, although the specific numbers for each candidate were not revealed at the time. In the second poll conducted this month by the National Consultative Center, Iván Cepeda clearly stands above the others, with 20.9% of voting intention, followed by Abelardo de la Espriilla (14.4%), Sergio Fajardo (7.8%), and Claudia Lopez (5%).