Overview
- Eight candidates are on the ballot, and no one is expected to clear 50% today, setting up a December 14 runoff under Chilean law.
- Late polls before the pre‑election blackout showed Jeannette Jara leading, with José Antonio Kast favored to join her in a runoff as libertarian Johannes Kaiser gained late momentum.
- Voting is compulsory for roughly 15.7 million registered citizens, introducing a large pool of previously inactive voters and adding significant uncertainty to forecasts.
- All 155 lower‑house seats and 23 of 50 Senate seats are being contested, and a unified right could gain majorities and, with four‑sevenths in both chambers, the ability to pass constitutional reforms.
- Crime and immigration dominate the campaign, with Jara pledging police modernization and new prisons, Kast pushing mass deportations and maximum‑security facilities, and Kaiser proposing border closures and expulsions of criminal migrants.