LIVE | Milei’s Party achieves a resounding victory in legislative elections in Argentina with more than 40% of votes

The ruling party La Libertad Avanza (LLA) won with 40.8% of the votes over Peronism (center-left), which in its different variants added up to 31.6%.

LOOK: Argentina Elections 2025: latest news from the legislative elections on October 26

With this provisional result, The ruling party expands its bench and approaches the third it needs in both chambers to protect its vetoesbut must forge alliances with other forces to advance structural reforms.

“Milei dear, the people are with you”hundreds of the president’s supporters sang in front of the LLA bunker in Buenos Aires.

“I am very happy and enthusiastic. I did not expect such a large number”Facundo Campos, a 38-year-old marketing consultant, told AFP. “I shouted it as if it were the goal of Argentina’s last World Cup winner,” he added.

Clad in his usual leather jacket, Milei voted before noon in Buenos Aires, He greeted fans who were waiting for him and left without making a statement.

The last few weeks were marked by a flight of the Argentine peso that led Milei to ask US President Donald Trump for a bailout.

Washington promised a total of $40 billion and intervened in the exchange market, but the aid was accompanied by Trump’s warning to Argentines that he would not be “generous” if the result is unfavorable for Milei.

Here are five keys to the elections that will renew half of the 257 deputies and a third of the 72 senators of a Congress where the ruling party is a minority.

Winner and loser

Milei revolutionized the electoral panorama in 2023 with an anti-political speech with which general fatigue crystallized in his figure.

In November of that year achieved a resounding victory in the presidential elections with 56% in the runoffbut his 30% in the first round left him in a minority in the Legislature.

Congress was thus able to frustrate his main reforms, approve laws that according to the president threaten fiscal balance and even reverse presidential vetoes.

Milei’s party, Freedom Advanceswill not be able to obtain an absolute majority in the chambers after the elections. However, it is considered a fact that it will increase its meager base of 37 deputies.

Milei He has said that getting a third of legislators in each chamber would be “a good result” because it is the minimum number to prevent the reversal of a presidential veto.

three forces

He officialdom appears alone or together with the right-wing party PROdepending on the province. This alliance crystallizes a legislative unity in which the PRO almost always accompanied the government in the votes.

Opposite is the peronist opposition (center-left), who has governed for 17 of the last 23 years and is seeking to rebuild after the 2023 defeat.

The governor of the province of Buenos Aires, Axel Kicillof emerges as the new leader of this space whose reference is the two-time president Cristina Kirchner (2007-2015), today imprisoned and disqualified for corruption.

A third force tries to emerge and break this polarization: “United Provinces”, which brings together half a dozen governors and parties from the center-right to the center-left.

“Worse than two years ago”

The government of Milei He drastically reduced inflation in his first year in office and in 2025 he maintained this trend at the cost of reducing public spending and removing subsidies that made access to housing, health and education more expensive.

“We are worse than two years ago,” laments Héctor Sánchez, a 62-year-old waiter who has been working in the gastronomic sector for more than 40 years.

“This government promised a lot and I don’t see anything (…), it didn’t create jobs,” says Sánchez, who voted for Milei in 2023 and is now undecided: “I don’t want to go back to what was before.”

The anti-politics and anti-corruption discourse was affected by scandals. The most recent led an economist close to Milei to renounce his candidacy due to alleged links to drug trafficking.

United States Rescue

The United States came to the rescue of the Argentine economy with a line of credit of 20,000 million dollarsthe promise of another 20,000 million from private funds and direct interventions in the local currency market to defend a peso that many analysts consider overvalued.

Argentines fear a devaluation after the electionswhich can negatively impact your purchasing power.

For Mauricio Monge, economist for Latin America at Oxford Economics, Washington’s aid “is not enough to counteract the growing probability that the electoral results will prevent additional reforms.”

A receptive “Lion”?

In the final stretch of the campaign, Milei insulted opponents and journalists less, He extended his hand to the governors and showed empathy with the “vulnerable” Argentines, who “have not yet felt in their reality” the “success” of their government.

His tone moderated when his party lost by almost 14 points in a key regional election.

But does “Lion” Milei have room for post-election practicality?

“Perhaps Milei’s pragmatism is working, that he is making temporary agreements for a less radical reform than he would have liked,” believes Gabriel Vommaro, political scientist at the Conicet research center.

“But I find it hard to think that a standardized Milei has anything to gain in terms of popularity,” he stated.