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After leading in the polls for months, Javier Milei<\/a>, a far-right libertarian economist, tumbled to second place in Argentina\u2019s election on Sunday, sending him to a runoff next month that will be an important test of strength for the global far-right movement.<\/p>\n Mr. Milei, 53, will face off against Sergio Massa, 51, Argentina\u2019s center-left economy minister who finished a surprise first Sunday and who will now try to persuade voters he can save the nation of 46 million from the economic turmoil that his government helped create.<\/p>\n Mr. Massa earned 36 percent of the vote, to Mr. Milei\u2019s 30 percent, with 92 percent of the votes counted. Candidates needed to surpass 45 percent, or 40 percent with a 10-point margin of victory, to avoid a runoff.<\/p>\n Since winning the primary election in August, Mr. Milei had been leading most polls, with Mr. Massa in second. But many voters on Sunday showed that they preferred a more familiar candidate \u2014 Mr. Massa has spent more than two decades in Argentine politics \u2014 to Mr. Milei, who has spent his career as a corporate economist and then television pundit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cFor Milei, this should be a shock,\u201d said Ignacio Labaqui, an Argentine political analyst. Mr. Milei received nearly the same percentage of the vote as in the primary election, he said, while Mr. Massa\u2019s support grew after a campaign focused on the dangers of a Milei presidency. \u201cMassa has a very strong chance to become Argentina\u2019s next president,\u201d Mr. Labaqui added.<\/p>\n Mr. Milei has dominated the national conversation and received blanket media coverage in Argentina in recent months with his brash outsider campaign centered on radical proposals to eliminate the nation’s central bank and replace its currency, the Argentine peso, with the U.S. dollar.<\/p>\n Those plans have gained traction with millions of Argentines as the nation grapples with its worst economic crisis in decades. Poverty is rising, annual inflation is nearing 140 percent and the value of the peso is plummeting. In April 2020, at the start of the pandemic, $1 bought 80 pesos, using an unofficial rate based on the market\u2019s view of the currency. Ahead of the vote, $1 bought 1,200 pesos.<\/p>\n Mr. Milei has also attracted attention in Argentina and abroad for his bellicose political style that has drawn comparisons \u2014 which he has embraced \u2014 to Donald J. Trump<\/a> and Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil\u2019s former president.<\/p>\n Mr. Milei has delivered harsh, often profane attacks against the press, his rivals and foreign leaders, called for looser gun regulations and, in a recent interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, called climate change part of \u201cthe socialist agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He has also claimed he was the victim of significant voter fraud in the primary elections, though his campaign did not lodge a formal complaint with election officials, and he has backed the false claims that the most recent presidential elections in the United States and Brazil were stolen.<\/p>\n Mr. Massa serves as a stark contrast to Mr. Milei. A lawyer and longtime politician, with one failed presidential campaign already under his belt, he represents the political establishment that Mr. Milei has made the villain of his campaign. Mr. Massa belongs to the Peronist political movement, which has ruled Argentina for 16 of the last 20 years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Massa is promising stability to voters, versus the radical change that Mr. Milei is selling. Yet he has also spent some of the campaign apologizing for his party\u2019s handling of the economy.<\/p>\n While some of Argentina\u2019s recent problems have been worsened by the pandemic and a major drought, Argentine officials for years have run up large deficits to finance free or deeply subsidized universities, health care and energy, as well as to employ a large public sector. To pay for that, they have often printed more pesos, undercutting the currency\u2019s value.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Poverty in Argentina surpassed 40 percent this year, up from 36.5 percent a year prior, while many wealthier Argentines have watched the value of their savings plunge on the global market.<\/p>\n Mr. Massa\u2019s platform includes few major changes to the government\u2019s economic approach, with his main proposal involving increased energy production and lithium extraction. <\/p>\n On Sunday, it appeared that he was able to combine the Peronist party\u2019s fiercely loyal base with more centrist voters worried about Mr. Milei\u2019s ability to govern \u2014 a strategy that also could work in the runoff.<\/p>\n \u201cHe seemed the least bad,\u201d said Jorge Cernadas, 64, just after voting for Mr. Massa in Buenos Aires on Sunday. \u201cI don\u2019t have a lot of faith in anyone\u2019s economic plan. Maybe with Massa some things will remain preserved, in the human rights field, for example.\u201d<\/p>\n After the results were announced on Sunday night, showing Mr. Massa in first, a gathering outside his election-night headquarters turned into a street party, with people singing Peronist chants. \u201cI was really scared, but now I\u2019m really relieved and have a lot of strength for the next round,\u201d said Luciana Kerner, 47, an Uber driver wearing a hat with the name of Argentina\u2019s leftist former president, Cristina Fern\u00e1ndez de Kirchner.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Milei\u2019s pool of supporters is largely made up of young, male voters excited about his combative, anti-establishment rhetoric and older Argentines desperate for change.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if I\u2019m not 100 percent in agreement with a lot of things, he\u2019s the person who is truest to himself,\u201d Gabriel Silbeir, 21, who serves in Argentina\u2019s military, said at a polling station on Sunday. <\/p>\n Polls for months have shown that Mr. Milei would beat Mr. Massa in a runoff, but those same polls proved to be inaccurate on Sunday. A third candidate, Patricia Bullrich, a right-wing former security minister, also appeared to have a shot to reach the runoff, according to polls, but was eliminated on Sunday after receiving just under 24 percent of the vote.<\/p>\n Mr. Milei will now have to focus on attracting most of Ms. Bullrich\u2019s supporters to beat Mr. Massa, Mr. Labaqui said. While Mr. Massa finished first on Sunday, there remains strong anti-Peronist sentiment across the nation after a string of corruption scandals and economic crises.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A Massa presidency would likely lead to few major changes for Argentina, while a Milei presidency could deliver a shock to the nation\u2019s politics and economy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n If elected, Mr. Milei has pledged a drastic free-market overhaul. He wants to lower taxes, slash regulations, privatize state industries, shutter 10 of the 18 federal ministries, shift public education to a voucher-based system and cut federal spending by 15 percent of Argentina\u2019s gross domestic product.<\/p>\n His biggest proposals are to get rid of the Argentine central bank and the Argentine peso, which he says will end inflation.<\/p>\n Yet many economists worry that Mr. Milei\u2019s libertarian economic theories, which have little history of real-world application, could instead inflict even more damage on an already fragile economy, one of Latin America\u2019s largest.<\/p>\n Emmanuel Alvarez Agis, Argentina\u2019s former deputy minister of the economy under a leftist government, said the economic proposals would be a sort of experiment. \u201cAnd we would be the mouse,\u201d he added. \u201cForty-six million of us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Milei would likely face major challenges in achieving his proposals. He and economists have agreed that dollarizing the economy will require a major influx of dollars, but it is not clear where Argentina could get that money. The country is already struggling to pay a $44 billion debt to the International Monetary Fund.<\/p>\n Mr. Milei would also lack many clear allies in Congress, though he has said that he would put the issue to a national referendum.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Milei has also attracted attention for his eccentric personality. His supporters have nicknamed him \u201cThe Wig\u201d for his unruly hairdo (another echo of Mr. Trump) and embraced his love for his five cloned mastiff dogs<\/a>, four of which are named for conservative economists.<\/p>\n Before the results were announced on Sunday, Mr. Milei\u2019s campaign already complained of reports of voter fraud, saying it had received 4,500 reports of stolen or damaged ballots for Mr. Milei\u2019s party. <\/p>\n After his second-place finish, some of his supporters raised similar allegations. \u201cTo me, there was fraud,\u201d Rocio Baier, 35, a systems analyst and Milei supporter outside the campaign\u2019s election-night headquarters in Buenos Aires on Sunday. \u201cMilei did really well in the primary, and now there is a clear difference. It doesn\u2019t make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n Luc\u00eda Cholakian Herrera and Natalie Alcoba contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n