Conservative candidate Laura Fernández has increased her chances of winning Costa Rica’s presidency in the first round next Sunday, according to a poll released Tuesday night. Fernández, the ruling party’s candidate and an admirer of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, leads voting intention with 44%, according to a survey by the prestigious University of Costa Rica (UCR), a state institution.
To avoid a runoff, a candidate must win 40% of the vote. A previous UCR poll released on January 21 put support for the former minister at 40%. In second place is social-democratic economist Álvaro Ramos with 9.2% support, up from 6.6% in the earlier survey. He is followed by architect and former first lady Claudia Dobles with 8.6%.
Meanwhile, the share of undecided voters fell from 32% to 26%. A 39-year-old political scientist and political heir to popular President Rodrigo Chaves, Fernández has gained ground with a tough-on-crime message in response to rising violence linked to drug trafficking, inspired by Bukele’s war on gangs.
In 2025, Costa Rica’s homicide rate climbed to nearly 17 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. For years, the country was considered one of the safest in the region. Fernández wants to secure a majority in Congress that would allow her to reform the Constitution, particularly the judiciary, which she and Chaves accuse of being an obstacle in the fight against organized crime.
Her party, Pueblo Soberano, also leads voting intention for congressional seats with 29.5%. Behind it are Ramos’s National Liberation Party with 9.2% and the leftist Broad Front with 8.3%. Costa Rica’s opposition accuses Chaves and Fernández of trying to entrench an authoritarian model that would endanger the separation of powers that has made Costa Rica, a country of 5.2 million people, a democratic model on the continent.
The poll covered 1,501 phone interviews conducted between January 20 and 26, with a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.
