Poll Tracker: Colombia's 2026 Presidential Election

The first round of the presidential vote is on May 31, but Colombians will get a chance to shape the race during primaries on March 8. The primary ballot will feature contests to lead three separate coalitions, one left, one right, and one center. However, neither of the top two candidates in the polls—the Historic Pact’s Iván Cepeda and Defender of the Homeland’s Abelardo de la Espriella—will be competing in March.

Cepeda, a senator and human rights activist, had originally planned to take part in the leftist Front for Life coalition’s primary in which polls gave him a commanding lead. But on February 4, Colombia’s National Electoral Council barred him from running in the coalition primary because he had already participated in his party’s October political primary. Colombian law prohibits a candidate from participation in two primaries. Cepeda, who will now have to compete as part of a more fragmented left, will advance directly to the first round, where he is pitching himself as a continuation of the policies of President Gustavo Petro. Petro’s approval rating hovers just under 40 percent, according to Atlas Intel’s February survey.

Polling behind Cepeda is far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella, who models himself in the vein of Presidents Javier Milei of Argentina and Nayib Bukele of El Salvador. He’s opted not to participate in the right-wing primary. In that contest, top candidates include Senators Paloma Valencia and Juan Manuel Galán, as well as journalist Vicky Dávila.

A third primary, the Consultation for Solutions, features two candidates closer to the center, one of which is Claudia López, Bogotá’s center-left ex-mayor (2020–2023). López had tried to get Sergio Fajardo, a centrist who served as Medellín’s mayor (2004–2008) and Antioquia governor (2012–2016), to participate in the primary, but he declined. Like Cepeda and de la Espriella, he will compete under his own party’s banner in the first round.

In that May 31 first round, a candidate needs 50 percent of the vote to win outright. Otherwise, a second round will be held between the two top vote-getters on June 21.

Who is leading the polls for the primaries, the first round, and a potential runoff? And what are the top issues for over 40 million registered Colombian voters?