The poll war continues despite the ban, and two consulting firms have changed their leader.

If at the beginning of the year, most electoral polls predicted a comfortable victory for the ruling party in the October 26 legislative elections , today the numbers point to a close and open finish . For this reason, and because consulting firms always try to adjust their polls right up to the last minute, voting intention surveys continue to circulate despite the fact that the electoral ban is now in effect.

The uncertainty is such that two consulting firms that until last week had the upper hand in one of the two main spaces now have the upper hand in the other. Always with narrow gaps, within what is known as the margin of error.

The consulting firms that changed their leader in these hours - while they continue measuring, as they clarified to Clarín - were Rubikon Intel and Trespuntozero .

The first is the firm featuring former K-12 official Fernando "Chino" Navarro . This polling firm made a positive prediction for the Buenos Aires City elections on May 18 and predicted that Peronism could win the Buenos Aires elections on September 7, although, like others, it came up just short .

Trespuntozero , meanwhile, works in tandem with La Sastrería . The former is directed by analyst Shila Vilker , and the latter by Raúl Timerman , the former foreign minister's cousin and always close to Peronism.

Before the ban, Rubikon Intel published a report that gave the government a lead of about two points , with La Libertad Avanza and Fuerza Patria below 40 points. Now—without going into precise numbers due to the ban—it has Peronism United in the Front leading by less than a point.

Trespuntozero and La Sastrería , meanwhile, were the consulting firms that gave Fuerza Patria the highest ratings nationwide before the weekend, with a 6.2-point lead and strong polarization (the two sides of the divide exceeded 86%). In their latest study, LLA appears ahead, but by a very narrow margin.

As this newspaper anticipated, the last 10 polls before the ban went into effect showed the Libertarians in the lead, on average, about 2 points more than Fuerza Patria. The trend, however, had been favoring Peronism, which had been narrowing the gap for months.

One of the concerns among politicians and analysts is how the economic and political uncertainty the government has been unable to stabilize will impact the country. Can the Casa Rosada do well at the polls in this climate?

The other big question is whether the LLA's crushing defeat in the Province in September could be a catalyst for Milei's soft-core supporters to turn out to vote, thereby putting a stop to Kirchnerism.

Amid this numbers war , an interesting debate has arisen over how to compute the election results at the national level . The government wants the total tally to be published, respecting the stamps presented in each province. This is obviously a biased interpretation : La Libertad Avanza is the only alliance with a presence in all 24 national elections in every province.

The case of Peronism is also unusual: although it used the same criterion of adding local legislative elections to claim victory in the Province on September 7, at that time both Fuerza Patria and LLA had a presence in all eight electoral sections of Buenos Aires.

Now, as several local groups prefer to hide their closeness to Kirchnerism , because it functions as a "vote-stealing" mechanism, they use different labels, for example in Mendoza (the clearest case) and Tucumán, despite having Kirchnerist components within their ranks.

It's a double-edged sword, because while it may help them gain moderate local votes, they've left a flank that could complicate their outlook for the national tally.

The case has reached the Electoral Court, which could instruct the government to refrain from publishing the national total when it announces the provisional results on Sunday night. This, however, will not prevent the elite (politicians, media, and business leaders) from making their own interpretation.

In addition to the national total, the number of provinces each party wins and the number of seats each party obtains will undoubtedly be counted.