Bukele and Sheinbaum Lead Latin America in Approval Ratings for the Second Straight Month While Venezuela’s Delcy Rodríguez Hits the Bottom

Bukele and Sheinbaum Lead Latin America in Approval Ratings for the Second Straight Month While Venezuela's Delcy Rodríguez Hits the Bottom
By AndreX (left, Bukele) / By Presidencia de Guatemala (right, Sheinbaum)

Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico remain the most popular heads of government in Latin America for the second consecutive month, according to a July 2026 survey by CB Global Data conducted between July 3rd and 8th across 18 Latin American countries with sample sizes between 4,625 and 6,271 cases per country and a confidence level of 95 percent. Both leaders saw slight dips in their approval numbers compared to June, but held their positions at the top of a regional ranking that tells a complicated story about what Latin American citizens currently value in their leaders.

At the bottom of the ranking sits Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s acting president since January, who recorded the steepest month-over-month drop of any leader in the survey and now holds the lowest approval rating in the entire region.

Who Is Leading and by How Much

Bukele leads the ranking with a 67.4 percent favorability rating and a 28.3 percent negative image, down 1.7 percentage points from the 69.1 percent he recorded in June. The Salvadoran president has maintained a state of exception as the centerpiece of his security policy against gangs since March 2022, a strategy that has drawn international criticism but continues to generate strong domestic support. His position at the top of the regional ranking for two consecutive months reflects a consistent pattern of high approval despite the controversial nature of his governance model.

Sheinbaum, the first woman to govern Mexico, holds second place with a 65.1 percent positive image and a 30.2 percent rejection rate, a drop of 0.4 percentage points from the 65.5 percent she recorded in June. Her approval numbers were measured during a period in which Mexico co-hosted the 2026 FIFA World Cup alongside the United States and Canada, one of the largest international events the country has staged in decades.

Costa Rica’s recently inaugurated president Laura Fernández completes the top three with a 55.5 percent favorability rating and a 38.2 percent negative image, down 0.6 percentage points from the 56.1 percent she recorded the previous month.

The Middle of the Pack and What the Numbers Reveal

Paraguay’s Santiago Peña holds fourth place with a 51.2 percent positive image and a 45.7 percent rejection rate, an improvement over the 48.3 percent he recorded in June. Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva follows in fifth with a 50.6 percent favorability rating and a 47.1 percent negative image, up from the 47.6 percent he recorded the previous month. Bolivia’s Rodrigo Paz, who has been in office since November, sits sixth with a 49.1 percent positive image and a 47.7 percent rejection rate, also above his June figure of 46.4 percent.

The middle section of the ranking includes Dominican Republic president Luis Abinader at 48.7 percent favorability, Honduras’s Nasry Asfura at 45.3 percent and Chile’s José Antonio Kast at 44.6 percent. Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa follows at 41 percent, while Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega, who holds the co-presidency alongside his wife Rosario Murillo, registers 40.2 percent favorability and a 58.6 percent negative image. Colombia’s Gustavo Petro sits twelfth at 39.4 percent positive and 57.5 percent rejection, and will hand power to president-elect Abelardo de la Espriella on August 7th.

Uruguay’s Yamandú Orsi registers 37.4 percent support, Argentina’s Javier Milei holds 36.8 percent favorability against a 61.3 percent rejection rate and Panama’s José Raúl Mulino sits at 34.2 percent acceptance with a 61.2 percent negative image, rounding out the lower portion of the ranking before the final two positions.

Who Is at the Bottom and Why the Numbers Matter

Peru’s interim president José María Balcázar sits in the second-to-last position with a 23 percent acceptance rate and a 68.5 percent rejection rate, though he recorded the largest month-over-month improvement of any leader in the survey, gaining 4.8 percentage points from the 18.2 percent he held in June. Balcázar is scheduled to transfer power on July 28th to Keiko Fujimori, the right-wing president-elect who won the country’s recent presidential election.

Delcy Rodríguez occupies last place with a 22.7 percent approval rating and a 70.8 percent negative image, down 6.8 percentage points from the 29.5 percent she recorded in June. The steepness of her drop is tied directly to the circumstances Venezuela has been navigating since late June, when two devastating earthquakes struck the country on June 24th, producing a death toll that has surpassed 5,000 people along with thousands of injuries and a complex humanitarian and reconstruction emergency that the government has struggled to manage in a country already dealing with years of economic collapse and institutional deterioration.

Guatemala’s Bernardo Arévalo de León completes the group of lowest-rated leaders with a 30.8 percent approval rating and a 63.4 percent negative image, down 2.3 percentage points from the 33.1 percent he held in June. The survey covers 18 Latin American nations and offers the clearest available snapshot of where public trust currently sits across a region navigating security crises, natural disasters, political transitions and the lingering economic pressures that have defined Latin American governance for the better part of this decade.

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