Centro would lean Last Database more towards Lasso and the null vote than towards Arauz. That is, in fact, the inertia of those territories in the last decade. It is noteworthy that in the 2013-2017 comparison, that is, between Lasso's first and second participation as a presidential candidate, where his support grew the most was Last Database precisely in those indigenous territories. In 2021, Lasso fell back in all those provinces, but not because Correismo regained ground, but because Pérez was an electoral alternative. In the absence Last Database of Pérez on the ballot for the ballot, where would a good part of those votes go? The conceptual model allowed them to go to Lasso.
But –we underline– the Last Database general trend assumed was that the votes went to Arauz or null, given what we know about the internal composition of Pérez's votes in the first round (more than a fifth of them came from Quito and the province of Azuay), and, above all, given the informed Last Database intuitions we had in this regard. Azuay, traditionally a stronghold of Correismo and where Pérez had his best electoral performance in the first round of 2021, helps illustrate the argument more clearly. Arauz obtained 21% in the Last Database first round, 23 points less than what Moreno achieved in 2017.
The Last Database reasons are obvious: in Azuay, Pérez obtained 42% (Hervas, by the way, reached 15%), and Lasso achieved 14% (less than half of the 32% that it reached in 2017 in the same province). In other words, the votes of the strong bastion of Correismo in the southern Sierra escaped Arauz in the direction of Last Database Pérez. In the absence of Pérez in the second round, Was it not reasonable to Last Database suppose that the majority of the partition of those Pérez votes –we underline “majority”– would “return” to Correista inertia or would become null,