Twelve days before the runoff, candidates Daniel Noboa and Luisa González intensified their campaigns with a focus on at least 1.2 million votes still up for grabs. This figure includes voters from eliminated candidacies, null votes, blank votes, and absentees.
Political consultant Antonio Tramontana indicated that the current stage is emotional and decisive, marked by a shift from reasoning to sentiment. The challenge for the candidates is to connect with disillusioned, confused, or undecided voters, who represent a decisive portion of the electorate.
Daniel Noboa has opted for a direct strategy: on-the-ground contact, interviews, and mobilizing his base as "ambassadors". His call is clear: convince door-to-door, step out of the comfort zone, and win new votes to consolidate his centrist project that prioritizes stability and governance.
Meanwhile, Luisa González has relied on indigenous movements aligned with correísmo and promises that contrast with the history of the Citizen Revolution. She offered a mining moratorium and prior consultations, despite the fact that during Correa's government —of which she was a part— these measures were not approved and indigenous protests were repressed.
Both candidates reached this stage with a minimal difference: Noboa with 4,527,606 votes (44.17%) and González with 4,510,860 (44%). The rest, more than a million votes, came from fourteen candidacies now out of the race.
Additionally, more than 2.4 million citizens did not vote, and more than a million cast blank or null ballots. That disengaged or skeptical electorate represents an opportunity to tip the balance in this second round.
While Noboa seeks to consolidate his narrative of responsible change, González tries to woo the fragmented left, even with contradictory alliances. This Sunday she plans to sign an agreement with Leonidas Iza, former presidential candidate of Pachakutik, whose support is questionable by the indigenous base, given the history with correísmo. Tension rises and emotions dominate the final speeches before the electoral silence. The key will be how effective the strategies are in mobilizing those who still do not feel represented by either.
In this final stretch, the contest between Noboa and González is defined by the ability to attract voters orphaned by the system. With a past that weighs on correísmo and an emotional campaign underway, Noboa emerges as a renewing option against the return of old practices.
