It was a landslide and it was narrow at the same time. With about 40.7 percent of the national vote and a knife edge flip of Buenos Aires province, Javier Milei and La Libertad Avanza turned the mid term elections into a verdict on his economic program. The map shifted across the interior. Córdoba, Santa Fe, and Mendoza moved with him. The win is real, and the mandate is cautious, because turnout slipped to about 67.9 percent, the lowest since 1983. What follows is the story of why he won, which is the story of his ideas, and how those ideas are now reshaping Argentina.

On the night of the count the mood in the capital was relief mixed with resolve. Supporters spoke of a turning point. Critics warned that the hard part still lies ahead. The president promised a great Argentina and then went back to work. Markets did not wait for speeches. The local equity index jumped more than twenty percent in the first session after the vote. Dollar bonds rallied strongly. By mid week some of those gains eased, but prices remained well above the levels seen before the ballots were cast. Traders were not cheering the noise. They were betting on a change in the way Argentina runs its economy.

The argument that carried the campaign can be summed up in one line. Prices must be free to move, money must be sound, the state must step back, and enterprise must lead. In the months before the vote the government cut ministries, pared subsidies, and closed loopholes that had fed chronic deficits. It moved from permanent emergency to a plan. Inflation began to fall from its extreme peaks. Not fast, and not evenly, but enough to create a sense that a long spiral was finally slowing.

His opponents tried to frame the election as a referendum on pain. They said the program would favour the few and bruise the many. In the end the map said something else. The swing to La Libertad Avanza was strongest in the provinces where the old model had offered promises without growth. The left did not vanish. It retreated. It will press again in Congress and in the streets. But it could not stop the vote that mattered.

Milei did not meet these ideas in office. He taught them and argued for them long before he took the oath. He names Menger, Mises, Hayek, and Rothbard in his speeches. He quotes them in interviews. He says that prices are information and that intervention distorts that information. He says that monetary discretion leads to abuse and to inflation that punishes the poor most of all. He ran on that language. He governs in it too, although practice must contend with politics and with the simple fact that Argentina has obligations to meet in foreign currency and a currency of its own that has to find a credible path.

The central open question is the exchange rate and the monetary regime. Since April the peso has traded inside a moving band. The central bank shifts the edges of that band each month. Inflation has often outrun the movement of the band, which blunts the adjustment and leaves pressure at the top of the range. The treasury needs dollars to meet payments that come due in 2026. Buying those dollars supports reserves but weakens the peso. That tension will not disappear until the regime is rebuilt. A full float with clear inflation targeting would be simpler. Full dollarisation would be harder still and would yield a different set of constraints and risks. The president has signalled that he wants to end discretion and end confusion. The path he takes will define the next year.

Congress remains the arena that matters most. Only half the lower chamber and a third of the Senate were renewed, so the government still needs partners. The victory gives it a veto shield, which changes the bargaining table. The opposition can block some things. It cannot force the treasury to spend in ways that would break the program. Governors in the farm belt and in energy provinces now read the same numbers that traders do. They know that if the government gets a clearer monetary path and a simpler tax code, they will get investment and jobs. They also know that if the peso slips again and inflation roars, there will be no credit and no patience. They will deal.

Washington added a further layer. The United States provided a large swap line and bought pesos directly in the weeks before the vote. That help steadied the market when the local currency tested the edge of its range. It came with an implicit message. Keep the program tight and the support will remain. Loosen it and do not expect the same care. No one in Buenos Aires confuses a swap line with growth. It is a bridge, not a destination. But it was a bridge at the moment the project needed one.

None of this denies cost. Removal of subsidies raises some bills before wages rise to meet them. Cuts to public payrolls change lives. The state cannot be shrunk on paper alone. It must be reshaped in reality. That process is hard. It must be matched by an acceleration of private hiring and fresh investment or the social patience that made the vote possible will fade. This is the hinge. If the government can move quickly to clear labour rules and simplify taxes while it clarifies the monetary path, then the private side can pull more people into formal work. If not, the story will turn and it will turn fast.

Why then did he win. Because the policy spoke to experience and not only to ideology. Because enough voters chose discipline over drift. Because investors and provincial leaders saw a credible route to lower inflation and better growth and decided to give it a chance. Because even those who do not love the president feared a return to the old spending habits more than they feared a new plan.

There is a pattern in Argentina. Parties that win mid terms often lose the presidency two years later. That pattern is now the enemy of this project. The way to break it is to turn a rally into a recovery, to move from a budget surplus on paper to investment on the ground, and to move from a slogan about freedom to a daily reality in which rules are simple, money is predictable, and work pays. The government has the votes to block a return to the past. It does not yet have the votes to write the entire future. That is the work of the next season.