The candidates choose comfortable territories to show their strength at the start of the campaign

The candidates begin the campaign in safe territory, that is, where they gather the most followers.

Claudia Sheinbaum, Morena's standard-bearer, will present her program in the capital's Zócalo, in which a mass bath is expected.

She is her undoubted political fiefdom, she has been head of Government in Mexico City, where she still retains 68% of sympathies, according to the latest Enkoll survey for EL PAÍS.

It will not be difficult to fill the large Mexican plaza, where everyone challenges each other to fill its enormous capacity.

Xóchitl Gálvez begins at midnight on Thursday in Fresnillo, but will dawn in the state capital, Zacatecas, to continue her journey through Aguascalientes and surround herself, now, with thousands of coreligionists in Irapuato, Guanajuato, PAN territory, where the candidate will be able to offer a massive rally.

From Movimiento Ciudadano it is known that the candidate, Jorge Álvarez Máynez, will visit Sonora, Jalisco and Nuevo León this weekend, some of the places where the Emecistas have a firm foothold and can start with a big bang.

After some back and forth, first they said it would be in the capital, the opposition candidate has opted for safe territory, that is to say.

Few would choose to be in Fresnillo at midnight and Irapuato is not a vacation spot either, but both cities have their reason for being.

Fresnillo is the municipality in which citizens perceive the greatest insecurity in Mexico, and rightly so, if you look at the numbers of victims associated with organized crime in that place.

It is, they say in their campaign, a square “symbolic for the moment that the country is going through, although it is not the only one, Fresnillo is the icon of many places in Mexico that remain like no man's land, without authority, where people abandon and he leaves,” they explain.

Insecurity will be a recurring theme for the opposition, no one has other data, everyone uses the same data, around 100 deaths a day.

“It has been the worst six-year term,” his team points out.

Guanajuato is also a good place to present the electoral program that the opposition has prepared against violence.

Although they will not be the only topics to be discussed: health and the lack of medicines is another of candidate Gálvez's battles.

Sheinbaum also reported that he would announce the keys to his government program at the start of the campaign, which will culminate in the polls on June 2.

But the first detail is the place.

No surprises are expected in the Zócalo, it is full on Friday, it is territory, yes, very safe for the Morenista candidate.

Also a symbol of his management, which Sheinbaum asserts in the face of worse statistics at the federal level, as is the case of crime in the capital, where, he often repeats, it was reduced during his mandate, something that cannot be said in Zacatecas, land of the Morenistas, for example.

The candidate will surely be accompanied by the leadership of the cherry party, which has finally managed to go to the polls united.

Gálvez also has good roots in the capital, but measuring herself against the official candidate would not have been an accurate step in the campaign.

Guanajuato avoids comparisons and guarantees the massive rally typical of the start of the race.

The Citizen Movement will also look for emblematic places that offer a large concentration of militants and sympathizers.

Those from the orange party started the campaign late, that is, on time.

But the first candidate to take the step, Samuel García, had to throw in the towel and finally it was Álvarez Máynez who picked up the baton.

Less known than the governor of Nuevo León, he nevertheless has the full support of the couple from Monterrey, who will know how to move the faithful to receive the candidate in large numbers.

The most complicated place is Jalisco, with an Emecista governor, Emilio Alfaro, who has been a discordant voice in recent times due to the course taken by the party led by Dante Delgado.

Máynez has always had good words for Alfaro and will visit the land of Jalisco.

Sonora is the third State on the orange agenda for this weekend.

It was the one that made the least sense, unless... unless the delegation made a stop in Magdalena de Kino, Luis Donaldo Colosio's homeland.

This was revealed at some point, but it has yet to be confirmed.

That would be a very symbolic blow.

The figure of the presidential candidate assassinated in 1994 has a place in the hearts of the majority of Mexicans.

The PRI is now the flag of MC because that is where his son is active: Colosio Riojas has been mayor of Monterrey and is now running for senator in the orange group.

The weight of his surname, among other things, gives him enormous sympathy among the citizens and he was the best valued to head the presidential poster, but he did not want to.

There will be time, he is still young.

At the inauguration of candidate Máynez, Colosio Riojas' speech invoked the figure of his father.

There is no politics without symbols.

Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS México newsletter