Two months after assuming the Presidency of the Republic, Laura Fernández continues to position herself among the leaders with the best image in Latin America. This is reflected in the Latin American Presidential Ranking for July 2026, prepared by the specialized firm CB Global Data, which places the Costa Rican in third place in the region with a 55.5% approval rating.
The measurement places Fernández only behind the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, who leads the list with a 67.4% positive image, and the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, who reaches 65.1% support. Fourth place goes to the president of Paraguay, Santiago Peña, while the fifth place is occupied by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from Brazil.
According to the study, the Costa Rican president experienced a decrease of 0.6 percentage points in her positive image compared to the June measurement. However, the consulting firm itself points out that this variation is not statistically significant, so public opinion remains practically stable compared to the previous month.
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The results also show that the positive perception of the president is composed of two segments. 31.6% of Costa Ricans consider her image to be “very good,” while 23.9% rate it as “good,” which together represents the 55.5% approval rating obtained in the survey.
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Nayib Bukele and Claudia Sheinbaum lead the regional list prepared by the consulting firm. Credit: CB Global Data.
In contrast, 38.2% of those interviewed expressed a negative opinion about the president, while 6.3% responded that they do not know or preferred not to express an opinion.
The report shows that Costa Rica continues to be among the countries whose heads of state maintain the highest levels of public support in the region, in a context where several Latin American governments are facing declines in their popularity indicators due to economic, political, and social factors.
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At the top of the ranking, Bukele maintains regional leadership with a wide lead over the rest of the leaders, while Sheinbaum holds the second position. Behind Fernández appear Santiago Peña, with an approval rating of 51.2%; Lula da Silva, with 50.6%; and Rodrigo Paz, president of Bolivia, with 49.1%.
Further down in the rankings are Luis Abinader, from the Dominican Republic; Nasry Asfura, from Honduras; José Antonio Kast, from Chile; Daniel Noboa, from Ecuador; Daniel Ortega, from Nicaragua; and Gustavo Petro, from Colombia.
Among the group of presidents with the lowest approval ratings are Yamandú Orsi, from Uruguay; Javier Milei, from Argentina; José Raúl Mulino, from Panama; Bernardo Arévalo, from Guatemala; José M. Balcázar, from Peru; and Delcy Rodríguez, from Venezuela, who occupies the last position in the ranking with an approval rating of 22.7%
The study indicates that more than half of Costa Ricans maintain a positive perception of the president’s administration. Credit: CB Global Data.
The survey was conducted between July 3 and July 8, 2026, through interviews with 4,854 people, with a margin of error of ±1.4 percentage points. According to CB Global Data, the research seeks to periodically measure citizen perception of Latin American leaders using public opinion methodologies that are comparable across countries.
The consulting firm specializes in social climate studies, electoral behavior, and government evaluation in Latin America, and its measurements are frequently used as a benchmark to analyze the evolution of the image of political leaders in the region. In the case of Costa Rica, the July results reflect that Laura Fernández maintains solid citizen support during the first weeks of her administration and remains among the three best-rated leaders in Latin America.
