The Rubikon experiment: a daily tracking poll, a city on the move
For ten days, from May 7 to 18, 2025, Rubikon Intel ran a continuous tracking exercise in the City of Buenos Aires to anticipate voting behaviour in the legislative election. More than 3,300 interviews were conducted, representative by comuna (district), age, gender and education level, through a certified online panel and social-media recruitment.
The result was surgical:
- Rubikon tracking: Adorni 30.4%, Santoro 27.7%, Lospennato 15.9%
- May 18 result: Adorni 30.1%, Santoro 27.3%, Lospennato 15.9%
A deviation of less than 0.5%. But the most valuable part was not just the accuracy, it was the subtext: the city did not vote for what it says it thinks. It voted for what it felt. It voted from the symptom rather than from a project.
These are the three keys to reading the City of Flight.
1. Marra switched off, Adorni switched on: the economic vote wins by knockout
Ramiro Marra did La Libertad Avanza an enormous favour when he halted his campaign. The slight bleeding Marra represented for the national ruling party was small but decisive. Marra’s young voters vanished into “I don’t know”. Adorni’s support grew among 35- to 50-year-olds, right when the government announced lower tariffs on imported technology products.
But it is not only about the wallet. It is about representation. Adorni did not just propose economic measures. He spoke an economic language. He embodied the emotional code of the wallet.
- He captured 60.3% of Marra’s 2023 vote
- He captured 35% of the Macri vote
- He captured 20% of the left-wing vote
- And 84% of his voters are “completely sure” of their decision
This was not a doctrinal vote. It was economic certainty, wrapped in political rejection.
2. PRO isn’t bleeding: it’s draining away
Silvia Lospennato should have been PRO’s natural heir. Technical, moderate, institutionalist. But the party machine did not hold her up.
- Only 32.5% of the 2023 Macri vote stayed with her, and 35% defected to Adorni
PRO holds on among voters over 55. But that is where its frontier ends. The young vote left, not because it turned anti-system, but because it no longer finds a valid political grammar in PRO.
3. Ficha Limpia: a polarization thermometer, a mirror of indifference
The study deliberately included a battery of questions on Ficha Limpia (the “clean record” bill barring convicted candidates) to measure whether high-voltage institutional issues could have an electoral effect. The hypothesis was simple: if an ethics agenda can still shape the electorate, it should show up here.
It did not.
21.8% of Santoro voters and 6.5% of Adorni voters answered “I don’t know” when asked about the bill’s failure. The attribution of blame was trapped in the logic of la grieta, Argentina’s political rift:
- 57.3% of Santoro voters blamed Milei
- 50.5% of Adorni voters blamed a Kirchnerist–Macrist pact
- 38% of Lospennato voters blamed a deal between Milei and Kirchnerism
Ficha Limpia did not shape the vote. It generated neither shared emotion nor electoral impact. It was an agenda of the political and business elite, not of the real voter.
But one question remains open: that 22% who did not know about the issue, and yet voted mostly for Santoro, what are they telling us? Is there an ethical sensibility outside the institutional radar? Is there a demand for representation we do not yet know how to read?
There is something there we still need to examine.
Epilogue: it isn’t apathy, it’s strategic disconnection
This tracking poll left one certainty: voters are not uninformed. They are reprogrammed. They vote from different codes. They do not respond to platforms or doctrines. They respond to signals: security, the dollar, tariffs, presence.
Today, in Buenos Aires City:
- People vote with their stomach, not with a platform
- Anger is what gets mobilized, not identity
- People choose whoever shows up, not whoever represents them
It is not the end of politics. It is its redesign. The local-management narrative is over. Now the emotional algorithm is set by inflation, the street and TikTok.
