BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — What was once one the bastion of the center-right in Argentina fell on Sunday to the radical libertarian party of President Javier Milei, a dramatic result that could help the leader's chances in crucial midterm elections later this year as voters across the country's capital abandoned the main conservative party.
Milei's top candidate and official spokesperson, Manuel Adorni, swept to victory in the Buenos Aires elections, securing over 30% of the ballots and crushing the center-right party of former President Mauricio Macri in its stronghold.
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Argentina’s President Javier Milei gives a thumbs-up after voting, accompanied by his sister Karina Milei, right, during city legislature elections in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, May 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
A voter checks the rolls during city legislature elections in Buenos Aires, Argentina Sunday, May 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Argentina's President Javier Milei casts his ballot during city legislature elections in Buenos Aires, Argentina Sunday, May 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
A city worker aids a voter during city legislature elections in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, May 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Argentina's President Javier Milei arrives to vote in city legislatures elections in Buenos Aires, Argentina Sunday, May 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Milei's La Libertad Avanza party, or LLA, said it racked up twice as many votes Sunday as it did in the last local election, in 2023.
As a brassy Argentine rock anthem blared at the post-election rally, Milei burst onto the stage, bouncing and pumping his arms to whip up the crowd.
“Today is a pivotal day for the ideas of freedom,” he bellowed, reveling in the cheers of supporters.
The upset marked a bruising defeat for Macri's PRO (Republican Proposal) party, which has governed Buenos Aires uninterrupted for the past 18 years. The PRO candidate, Silvia Lospennato, came in third with 15.9% of the vote.
“The results are not as expected,” Lospennato acknowledged. “We have a lot of work ahead of us."
Argentina’s left-leaning populist Peronist party, which has governed the country for much of the past two decades, came second, scraping over 27% in a city where they normally fall short, a sign of how the splintered right-wing has benefited the opposition.
“The Peronist party is far from dead with this result,” said Juan Cruz Díaz, a political analyst who runs the Cefeidas Group, a consultancy in Buenos Aires.
But the main takeaway from Sunday's vote, he said, “is the fight for dominance in the center-right and the strong victory over the PRO party.”
Some 2.5 million people were eligible to vote in Sunday’s election, in which half of the 60 legislative seats were up for grabs. Turnout was far lower than usual, hovering around 53%.
Widely seen as a power struggle between far-right Milei and center-right Macri, this local race reflected the shifts that hard-right factions have pulled off around the world, from Europe to the United States, squeezing the political center.
“It turned into a crucial battle for the political leadership,” said Ignacio Labaqui, a senior analyst at research group Medley Global Advisors.
The result cements Milei's party as Argentina's main alternative to the left-leaning Peronist movement championed by former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who governed for eight years after succeeding her husband in 2007. Under her watch, Argentina became notorious for its unbridled state spending and massive budget deficits.
“What this election yielded is that society understands we're the best way to end Kirchnerism for good, which was nothing but a tragedy for Argentina,” Adorni said in his victory speech, referring to the political movement of former President Kirchner.
The win also strengthens Milei’s hand ahead of midterm elections in October, a high-stakes vote in which he hopes to expand his party's tiny congressional minority to complete his economic and institutional overhaul of Argentina.
A former TV pundit known for his angry rants against Argentina’s political class, Milei founded LLA just four years ago, drawing a motley crew of political novices into his anti-establishment agenda.
With his party holding just 15% of seats in the lower house and 10% in the Senate, the president was forced to strike deals with Macri, the scion of a wealthy family who governed from 2015-2019, in order to push his harsh austerity measures through Congress.
Macri supplied Milei’s new government with key ministers, brought him a conservative base and helped him secure the support of critical political brokers and powerful governors.
But their uneasy alliance faltered over various disagreements, such as Milei’s recent effort to bypass Congress to install a contentious judge accused of corruption on the Supreme Court.
Macri has increasingly criticized Milei's bellicose approach to politics and what he called his “lack of respect” for Argentina's institutions.
“Putting the economy in order is not enough. We must strengthen institutions, be predictable and regain respect for one another,” Macri told supporters last week.
The Milei-Macri rivalry turned ugly on Sunday as Macri’s party filed a complaint with the Buenos Aires Electoral Tribunal over a widely shared artificial intelligence-generated deepfake of Macri announcing that his candidate was dropping out of the race and urging voters to back Milei’s candidate instead.
While the origin of the false video was unclear, Macri blamed Milei’s supporters for “breaking all the rules."
In response, the city's electoral court said it had ordered Elon Musk's social network X to take down the manipulated video.
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Associated Press writer Debora Rey in Buenos Aires, Argentina, contributed to this report.
Argentina’s President Javier Milei gives a thumbs-up after voting, accompanied by his sister Karina Milei, right, during city legislature elections in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, May 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
A voter checks the rolls during city legislature elections in Buenos Aires, Argentina Sunday, May 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Argentina's President Javier Milei casts his ballot during city legislature elections in Buenos Aires, Argentina Sunday, May 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
A city worker aids a voter during city legislature elections in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sunday, May 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Argentina's President Javier Milei arrives to vote in city legislatures elections in Buenos Aires, Argentina Sunday, May 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal agents carrying out immigration arrests in Minnesota's Twin Cities region already shaken by the fatal shooting of a woman rammed the door of one home Sunday and pushed their way inside, part of what the Department of Homeland Security has called its largest enforcement operation ever.
In a dramatic scene similar to those playing out across Minneapolis, agents captured a man in the home just minutes after pepper spraying protesters outside who had confronted the heavily-armed federal agents. Along the residential street, protesters honked car horns, banged on drums and blew whistles in attempts to disrupt the operation.
Video of the clash showed some agents pushing back protesters while a distraught woman later emerged from the house with a document that federal agents presented to arrest the man. Signed by an immigration officer, the document — unlike a warrant signed by a judge — does not authorize forced entry into a private residence. A warrant signed by an immigration officer only authorizes arrest in a public area.
Immigrant advocacy groups have done extensive “know-your-rights” campaigns urging people not to open their doors unless agents have a court order signed by a judge.
But within minutes of ramming the door in a neighborhood filled with single-family homes, the handcuffed man was led away and soon gone.
More than 2,000 immigration arrests have been made in Minnesota since the enforcement operation began at the beginning of December, said Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.
The Twin Cities — the latest target in President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement campaign — is bracing for what is next after 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed by an immigration officer Wednesday.
“We’re seeing a lot of immigration enforcement across Minneapolis and across the state, federal agents just swarming around our neighborhoods,” said Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis city councilmember. “They’ve definitely been out here.”
Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants who represents an area with a growing immigrant population, said he is closely monitoring information from chat groups about where residents are seeing agents operating.
People holding whistles positioned themselves in freezing temperatures on street corners Sunday in the neighborhood where Good was killed, watching for any signs of federal agents.
More than 20,000 people have taken part in a variety of trainings to become “observers” of enforcement activities in Minnesota since the 2024 election, said Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos MN, a local human rights organization .
“It’s a role that people choose to take on voluntarily, because they choose to look out for their neighbors,” Argueta said.
The protests have been largely peaceful, but residents remained anxious. On Monday, Minneapolis public schools will start offering remote learning for the next month in response to concerns that children might feel unsafe venturing out while tensions remain high.
Many schools closed last week after Good’s shooting and the upheaval that followed.
While the enforcement activity continues, two of the state’s leading Democrats said that the investigation into Good's shooting death should not be overseen solely by the federal government.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said in separate interviews Sunday that state authorities should be included in the investigation because the federal government has already made clear what it believes happened.
“How can we trust the federal government to do an objective, unbiased investigation, without prejudice, when at the beginning of that investigation they have already announced exactly what they saw — what they think happened," Smith said on ABC’s "This Week."
The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents and that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle.
Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, defended the officer on Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing.”
"That law enforcement officer had milliseconds, if not short time to make a decision to save his life and his other fellow agents,” he said.
Lyons also said the administration’s enforcement operations in Minnesota wouldn't be needed “if local jurisdictions worked with us to turn over these criminally illegal aliens once they are already considered a public safety threat by the locals.”
The killing of Good by an ICE officer and the shooting of two people by federal agents in Portland, Oregon, led to dozens of protests across the country over the weekend.
Thousands of people marched Saturday in Minneapolis, where Homeland Security called its deployment of immigration officers in the Twin Cities its biggest ever immigration enforcement operation.
Associated Press journalists Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis, Thomas Strong in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.
A woman gets into an altercation with a federal immigration officer as officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
A federal immigration officer deploys pepper spray as officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
A family member, center, reacts after federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Bystanders are treated after being pepper sprayed as federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
A family member reacts after federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Federal agents look on after detaining a person during a patrol in Minneapolis, Minn., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press via AP)
Bystanders react after a man was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during a traffic stop, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Robbinsdale, Minn. (AP Photo/John Locher)
People stand near a memorial at the site where Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE agent, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)
A man looks out of a car window after being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during a traffic stop, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Robbinsdale, Minn. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Border Patrol agents detain a man, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
People shout toward Border Patrol agents making an arrest, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
Demonstrators protest outside the White House in Washington, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey holds a news conference on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)
Protesters react as they visit a makeshift memorial during a rally for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer earlier in the week, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
