On Sunday, October 26, 2025, Argentines turned out in force for nationwide midterm legislative elections that could reshape the country’s economic destiny and determine the fate of President Javier Milei’s ambitious free-market reforms. The stakes were high: the outcome would not only test Milei’s political mandate but also threaten to upend a massive U.S. financial rescue package, contingent on the president’s continued grip on power.
The contrast across Buenos Aires was stark. In the gleaming Puerto Madero financial district, luxury car dealerships reported booming sales, and bankers applauded Milei for lifting import restrictions and ending the ban on selling dollars online. “Within my little circle, everyone’s happy with how things are going,” said Fernanda Díaz, a yacht rental entrepreneur, to the Associated Press. “When I step outside it, I see people worried about making it to the end of the month.”
Just across the polluted Riachuelo River, the mood was grim. In Isla Maciel, a working-class neighborhood, residents like Veronica Leguizamon found themselves dependent on soup kitchens after Milei’s government slashed subsidies for public services and unwound price controls on basic foods. “It’s not like we used to have so many luxuries, but before we could choose a meal,” Leguizamon explained. “Now we have to depend on others to know if we’ll eat or not.”
These divergent experiences captured the polarization gripping Argentina as voters cast ballots for half of the lower Chamber of Deputies (127 seats) and a third of the Senate (24 seats). Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party, a newcomer to national politics, controlled just 37 deputies and six senators—less than 15% of Congress—before the vote. The party’s goal: secure at least a third of seats to defend its sweeping reforms, shore up investor confidence, and, crucially, maintain the support of the United States and its right-wing president, Donald Trump.
“Don’t give up because we’re halfway there,” Milei urged supporters at a campaign rally in Rosario days before the vote, according to AFP. “We’re on a good path.”
But that path has been anything but smooth. Since taking office in December 2023 as a self-described “anarcho-capitalist,” Milei has made good on his promise to wield a symbolic chainsaw against state spending. Tens of thousands of public sector jobs have been eliminated, funding for education, health, and pensions has been slashed, and public works projects have been frozen. While these austerity measures have slowed monthly inflation—dropping from 12.8% before Milei’s inauguration to just 2.1% in September 2025, according to The Al Jazeera English—the cost has been steep. Economic growth and consumption have faltered, and millions have plunged deeper into poverty.
“You can’t live on 290,000 pesos a month with today’s inflation,” said Epifanía Contreras, a pensioner in Isla Maciel, as she collected food from a local soup kitchen. “The situation is getting worse and worse. It’s not fair.” Volunteers at the Foundation of Isla Maciel reported that demand for meals had more than doubled over the past year, with many new faces joining the daily lines. “People are coming out of real need,” said Maria Gomez, a volunteer cook. “It’s chaos.”
The political stakes are not just domestic. Earlier this month, the U.S. Treasury announced a $20 billion credit line for Argentina and promised another $20 billion in aid from private banks to help stabilize the peso. This unprecedented support came after panic gripped markets when Milei’s party suffered a landslide defeat to the opposition Peronist coalition in Buenos Aires provincial elections. Investors, fearing the rollback of Milei’s reforms, rushed to pull capital from the country. The U.S. intervention briefly calmed nerves and sent Argentine assets soaring.
Yet the support came with strings attached. President Trump, who has touted Milei as an ideological ally, warned that U.S. aid would evaporate if Milei lost ground to “a socialist or communist.” In his words, “If he doesn’t win, we’re not going to waste our time, because you have somebody whose philosophy has no chance of making Argentina great again.” This linkage to U.S. politics sparked outrage among some American farmers, already squeezed by Trump’s trade war with China. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa voiced their frustration: “Why would the USA help bail out Argentina while they take American soybean producers’ biggest market?”
For Milei, the congressional midterms were a make-or-break moment. With the opposition—led by the Peronist Fuerza Patria coalition—still controlling the largest minority in both chambers, many of his signature policies, including privatizations of state-owned enterprises, had been blocked. The government’s hope was to gain enough seats to defend austerity measures, uphold presidential vetoes, and push through labor and tax reforms.
But the electoral landscape was challenging. Following his party’s poor showing in the October provincial elections, Milei’s approval ratings had tumbled. Scandals involving his inner circle—including his sister and chief of staff—further eroded public trust. Mauricio Monge, a Latin America economist at Oxford Economics, told AFP, “The US bailout was not enough to counteract the growing likelihood that the election results will prevent further reforms. If history has taught us anything about Argentina, it’s that previous bailouts, when political support wanes, have proven futile.”
Even some of Milei’s initial supporters were feeling the strain. Díaz, the yacht company owner, recalled losing her executive job under the previous Peronist government due to high inflation and import restrictions. “I voted for Milei’s government and was really enthusiastic at first,” she admitted, but acknowledged the growing anxiety outside her business circle.
In Isla Maciel, nostalgia for the Peronists’ redistributive policies—despite their track record of inflation and debt—was on the rise. A third fewer residents in the Avellaneda municipality supported Milei’s party in the latest provincial election compared to 2023. Axel Kicillof, the influential Peronist governor of Buenos Aires province, described the midterms as “a critical election in the midst of a complex economic climate” and insisted, “Where is this resolved, or where does it begin to be resolved? At the ballot box.”
As voting unfolded under heavy security, Milei made a brief appearance at a polling station in Buenos Aires’ Almagro district, shaking hands with supporters but declining to speak to the press. The president’s once-ubiquitous chainsaw prop—a symbol of his radical agenda—was nowhere to be seen.
With polls predicting a tight race between Milei’s La Libertad Avanza and the Peronist Fuerza Patria, Argentines braced for familiar uncertainty. The outcome would shape not only the future of Milei’s reforms but also the country’s fragile relationship with its most powerful backer. As real estate broker Matías Paredes put it, “Each new government comes in, criticizes the last one, promises to do things differently and ends up being the same or worse. This country moves in cycles.”
The midterms, then, were more than a referendum on one man’s policies—they were a test of Argentina’s ability to break the cycle of crisis and renewal that has defined its modern history.
