Angie K. González G., Catalina Uribe, Ómar Rincón
This article examines how leading candidates claim political leadership in Colombia’s 2026 presidential race, a contest unfolding amid profound transformations in the country’s elite structures, media dynamics, and ideological configurations. Building on the November 2025 Cifras y Conceptos (literal translation: Figures and Concepts) survey, which identifies Iván Cepeda, Abelardo de la Espriella, and Sergio Fajardo as the leading candidates across the left-right-center spectrum, we analyze how each figure was publicly positioning himself during an early stage of the 2026 electoral cycle. Using an elite-analysis framework composed of four dimensions –persona and narrative, politics and ideology, media and digital performance, and class and background– we document the ways in which these candidates build on biography, symbolic authority, ideological positioning, and social class origins in order to generate legitimacy and appeal. The study draws on contemporary literature in political communication, leadership studies, and political psychology to situate these political profiles within broader scholarly debates on the evolution of elites and the mediatization of politics.