Pollitik's Fundamentals Forecaster Predicts a Noboa win in Ecuador

Ecuador

General Election– February 9th 2025

Pollitik’s Prediction

Pollitik’s Fundamentals Forecaster predicts that Daniel Noboa will emerge victorious in Ecuador’s presidential elections on February 9th, 2025. Based on his approval rating 6 months before the election, our model predicts Noboa will garner 55.8% of the first-round vote share. This result would likely allow Noboa to win outright, becoming the first Ecuadorian incumbent President to do so since Rafael Correa in 2013. The model is fairly optimistic about the likelihood of Noboa emerging victorious across two rounds. Since we use data six months before the election, Pollitik’s Fundamentals Forecaster does not account for late-breaking changes or electoral campaign issues. Yet these factors are beyond our model and we stand by our prediction.

In Ecuador, a Presidential candidate can win an election in the first-round if they achieve over 50% of the vote-share or attain at least 40% with a lead of 10 percentage points over their nearest competitor. So far, only one pollster has presented a scenario where that would be the case. According to Maluk Research, the leader of the opposition, Movimiento Revolución Ciudadana’s Luisa Gonzalez, could garner 43.17% of the vote-share to Noboa’s 29.02%. This scenario would make Noboa the country’s first incumbent President to lose re-election since the practice was made legal in 2008.

That said, predictions for this election, including Pollitik’s, vary widely. With the election two months away, first-round voter intention data paints a muddy picture. Some pollsters give González, who narrowly lost the 2023 election to Noboa, a sizable edge, while others grant the incumbent a slight lead. Polymarket, an oddsmaker, puts Noboa’s chance of victory at 50%, 5 points greater than that of González.

Pollitik's forecasts derive from a machine learning approach applied to roughly 125 presidential elections worldwide. Among the many factors they incorporate are a host of economic and political fundamentals measured 6 months from the election date. The most important political fundamental in this model is incumbent presidential approval. Of the economic fundamentals, inflation provides the most explanatory leverage.

Historical Presidential Approval in Ecuador

Daniel Noboa began his term as an extraordinarily popular President. As evidenced by the graph above, his approval ratings, at their peak, exceeded 80%. Still, despite a recent tumble, his pre-election numbers are bested only by Rafael Correa, the only Ecuadorian President to serve three terms, and Gustavo Noboa, who did not run for re-election. As a result, a potential Daniel Noboa loss in February would be historic.

ISSUES

Ecuadorian voters are primarily concerned with crime, the country’s ongoing power shortages, and the economy. Noboa rose to power amid an alarming increase in violence. His hard handed response to the issue – which included a “war” on organized crime – likely buoyed his early approval ratings. While the country’s homicide rate has dropped 17% since 2023, it is still 41% higher than figures from 2022. Noboa sought to undercut criminal organizations' increasingly successful recruitment pitches by addressing educational disparities and youth unemployment.

Crime appears to be taking an economic toll. Projections place Ecuador’s GDP growth at just 0.1% and poverty rate at 29.7%, 0.1% above the country’s 2023 rate as per World Bank data published by Americas Quarterly (see figure below). Compounding these problems is a severe drought. It has hampered hydroelectric power generation, causing rolling blackouts, some of which have lasted up to 14 hours. The Comité Empresarial Ecuatoriano has estimated that each 8-hour blackout costs the Ecuadorian private market $96 million.

What is Pollitik’s Call?

While current polling paints a confusing picture, Noboa has a realistic chance of winning re-election. At the time of writing, a run-off election seems probable. Daniel Noboa’s chances of winning hinge on his ability to contain the electricity blackouts and security concerns that have plagued his country and beleaguered his Presidency. Pollitik’s Fundamentals Forecaster predicts that Noboa will likely prevail in the end.