Macri re-elected BA Mayor after defeating Filmus by 28.5 points

City Mayor Mauricio Macri with running mate María Eugenia Vidal.

Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri won a second term in office, easily defeating President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's candidate, Daniel Filmus.

Official results showed Macri with 64.25 percent of votes and Filmus with 35.7 percent (99.8 percent of the votes counted). PRO, a party which has yet to endorse a presidential candidate, won in all the city’s 15 communes by varying margins. 

Macri had defeated Filmus 61-39 in the runoff of 2007. The margin this time was larger: almost 29 points in a 72.2 percent turnout with 5.3 percent of the ballots cast either spoiled or blank.

Argentines will vote for president on Oct. 23 and Fernández has a wide lead in polls as she runs for re-election. But a defeat last weekend in a key provincial election like Santa fe and the setback in the BA City could cool her momentum.

Political analysts will watch Filmus's performance to gauge how Fernández could fare in BA City during an upcoming nationwide primary and again in October, when she must win at least 40 percent of the vote to triumph in the first round.

Fernández's center-left government was expected to downplay the tally in Buenos Aires, chalking it up to a traditionally anti-Peronist electorate.

Voters will cast their ballots for governor of Córdoba province next weekend, the last election before the August 14 primaries that are already considered as a dress rehearsal for October since no party is fielding more than one candidate. 

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