They weren’t allowed to buy ads on television, radio, billboards or online. Mexico barred them from public funding or receiving campaign contributions. National debates were difficult, if not impossible, to mount.
So people running to be judges across Mexico were largely left with social media.
In one widely seen video, one Supreme Court candidate argued that he was as well seasoned as the fried pork sold on the streets. Another Supreme Court candidate styled herself Dora the Transformer, a spin on the cartoon character Dora the Explorer. Another Supreme Court candidate used dating apps so that, in his words, prospective voters could match with justice and then chat about the issues.
The strict campaign limits, in contrast to traditional rules for presidential or congressional elections, are part of Mexico’s sprawling, first-ever elections on Sunday. Voters will choose nearly 2,700 federal and state judicial positions at every level of the courts, with federal seats, like those on the Supreme Court, chosen at the national level and a host of officials elected locally.
In other elections, political parties can finance their candidates’ campaigns. But for these races, the governing party says it wanted to preserve some parity among candidates, and to limit outside influence on campaigns.
So judicial aspirants have had to use their own money, with specified spending limits, leading to homemade, over-the-top and sometimes comical marketing efforts on social media to attract attention.
“We’re not known people and we have to distinguish ourselves,” said Carlos Odriozola Mariscal, 54, a longtime lawyer who founded a human rights nonprofit and whose campaign for the Supreme Court began using dating apps to reach voters.
The rules and online campaigns have fueled criticism, including from opposition figures, legal analysts and some of the candidates themselves. They have argued that candidates with political experience and better resources have major advantages in self-funding campaigns, and that the elections could make grave and complex issues of justice subject to the internet’s caprice.
“There’s a risk of trivializing campaigns,” said Javier Martín Reyes, a law professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
“What works on social media isn’t necessarily connected to the type of characteristics we would expect for a judge,” he continued. “Judges not only have to be impartial but they have to appear impartial and appear serious and convey confidence.”
Legal experts and candidates have acknowledged that they do not know how influential the online campaigns will ultimately prove — especially given that political parties, trade unions and other powerful groups are working behind the scenes.
But Dora Alicia Martínez Valero, the Supreme Court candidate who drew attention as Dora the Transformer, said she was still worried about how these elections would play out. “The popularity of judges,” she said, “will become a relevant factor.”
Many candidates have still handed out fliers and met with people on the street, which are allowed under election rules. But Mr. Odriozola Mariscal knew that the internet would help him organically and cheaply reach people — and in places he couldn’t travel to.
“There’s a certain inequity there,” he said, adding that he “didn’t come close” to reaching the $76,000 spending limit for Supreme Court candidates. “We’re not all starting from the same level playing field.”
So Mr. Odriozola Mariscal and his team not only began using TikTok, Facebook and Instagram to post about his campaign, but he turned to dating apps Tinder and Bumble because he wanted to connect with different and younger generations.
Even though many of his social media videos are of him discussing his credentials or his stances, he got the most headlines for one last month in which he explained his use of Tinder.
Mr. Odriozola Mariscal set his preferences to both men and women of all ages, he said in an interview. Once they “matched with justice,” he said, he told them he wasn’t looking for a partner but wanted to talk to them about the election and his ideas. He added that he only used the platform for about a day until he was blocked for violating its policies.
Mr. Odriozola Mariscal said that he also used Bumble for roughly a week and a half, before leaving it because it was too much to manage. He insisted that using dating apps to campaign wasn’t trivializing the position he seeks because he was simply trying to reach more voters and, ultimately, he spoke to them about serious issues.
“It’s not bad if, and always and only, we combine it with my proposals,” he said.
The online campaigns have divided even the candidates making use of them. Ms. Martínez Valero, a 49-year-old former congresswoman who has worked with the Mexican media giant Televisa, said she took a social media training class before her campaign began.
Then she and her team decided to film a video of her as “Dora the Transformer” — a nickname that rhymes in Spanish — that shows her knocking down stacks of papers as a symbol of transforming a legal system that many Mexicans call corrupt, unresponsive and slow.
But after seeing the video get a lot of traction, Ms. Martínez Valero said she felt “terrible stress” and that she was being “too ridiculous.” So two days later, she posted a new video in which she expressed regret and asked to get serious about the issues.
“I myself said that I didn’t want this to get out of control and in a little bit I’m going to have to go around dancing and doing things that I don’t like to do,” she said in an interview. She added, “But nothing has had — not the seriousness, not the cases, not the issues — the impact of that original video.”
The same has happened to Arístides Rodrigo Guerrero García, a law professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico running for Supreme Court, who has posted many videos that are like mini lessons in Mexican law.
But he is more commonly known for a campaign video in which he says that he is as prepared as a “chicharrón preparado,” a fried pork snack often covered with cream, avocado, tomatoes, hot sauce and more.
In the competition to break through all the internet’s noise, candidates have taken many different tracks.
Asael Francisco Sánchez, a candidate for circuit court in Jalisco State, drew attention for calling himself Señor Justicia (Mr. Justice), sometimes depicting himself with a red superhero cape. Arturo Amaro, a district court aspirant in Querétaro State, shows off his yellow socks on TikTok to remind voters that he appears in yellow on the ballot. A Sonora State candidate, Alan Barragán Rubio, featured a song about himself.
And a Supreme Court candidate, Abraham Dávila Rodríguez, danced on video to a popular song by rapper Kendrick Lamar, with the text: “You prepared for this your whole life and now you’re on the ballot.”
James Wagner covers Latin America, including sports, and is based in Mexico City. A Nicaraguan American from the Washington area, he is a native Spanish speaker.
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