There was a moment in June when a lot of people thought that Daniel Jadue was a shoo-in to be the next president of Chile. All throughout the presidential primary, polls had given the Communist mayor a huge lead over Gabriel Boric, his Broad Front rival, as both competed for a spot on the Apruebo Dignidad ticket. Indeed, the mood among supporters was that, after years of building popular support and overcoming a divided Chilean left, Jadue’s number had finally been called.

However, on July 18, Boric scored a surprise victory, becoming the presidential candidate for the pro–Constitutional Assembly coalition. Following a campaign that revealed major differences between the Chilean Communist Party and the progressive Broad Front, Jadue and a significant part of the Communist Party are now pledging their support for Boric’s campaign in the upcoming November 21 general election — which, according to recent polls, is building up to be a race between the far right and the Left.

In retrospect, Jadue and Boric actually proposed similar programs: raising taxes on the superrich, replacing Chile’s private pension system with a state-backed program, and returning ancestral lands to indigenous inhabitants, among other policies. But the roadmap that Jadue put forth called for accelerated, often times more radical transformations — more radical, perhaps, than the Chilean electorate was ready to embrace.