Mexico's president is on the attack. It's political 'gold' for his rival

An extraordinary campaign by the Mexican president to undermine a leading opposition contender for the country's 2024 presidential election has drawn an official rebuke from the federal election authority and criticism that he is damaging the democratic process.

It also appears to be having an unintended effect: delivering a much-needed boost to the coalition aiming to unseat his party.

New polling this week from a Mexican newspaper showed Xóchitl Gálvez, a freshman senator vying for the ticket of Frente Amplio por México, an alliance of three parties, within striking distance of the front-runners from the leftist president's party - a significant development in a race that had widely been seen as leaning in the president's party's favor.

Gálvez's remarkable ascent comes as President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has levied a near-daily stream of attacks against her.

In regular news conferences this month, López Obrador has called her a "wimp," "puppet," and "employee of the oligarchy," questioned her upbringing in poverty, and, last week, released the private financial information of her business.

Gálvez has proven so adept at turning the attention into momentum that commentators joke the president has become her campaign manager.

"AMLO is obsessed with Senator Gálvez," Enrique Quintana, the general editorial director for the business newspaper El Financiero, wrote in a recent column, using a nickname for the president. "In a few weeks, he made her the most mentioned opposition candidate and considered by many to be the favorite."