The Mexican peso is gaining ground against the U.S. dollar as Donald Trump Donald John TrumpBiden leads Trump by 36 points nationally among Latinos: poll Trump dismisses climate change role in fires, says Newsom needs to manage forest better Jimmy Kimmel hits Trump for rallies while hosting Emmy Awards MORE's poll numbers sag, and some analysts see a causal link between the two movements.

The Wall Street Journal reported that, while other factors were at play, analysts and traders linked confidence in the Mexican economy with presidential polls in the United States.

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“The peso is rallying and, more importantly, it has more room to appreciate as [Democratic nominee] Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonBiden leads Trump by 36 points nationally among Latinos: poll Democratic super PAC to hit Trump in battleground states over coronavirus deaths Battle lines drawn on precedent in Supreme Court fight MORE continues to climb in the polls—gaining ground on Donald Trump, who has proposed policies that could potentially hurt Mexico’s economy,” Nomura Latin America strategist Benito Berber said, according to the Journal.

The Mexican economy heavily relies on four sectors: oil exports, tourism, manufacturing exports and foreign remittances. The majority of Mexican exports — 77.5 percent, according to the Trade and Logistics Innovation Center — go to the United States, aided by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has placed the U.S.-Mexico economic relationship at the center of his campaign, promising to renegotiate NAFTA and detain remittances to force Mexico to pay for a border wall.

The Wall Street Journal quoted Morgan Stanley analysts, saying, “Challenges to globalization and NAFTA in particular would deal a severe blow to Mexico’s economy, require policy makers to deliver another round of deep structural reforms to sustain long-term growth, and likely lead to a more depreciated peso.”

The peso's value against the dollar holds high significance in Mexican politics, as recurrent economic crises since the 1970s have been detonated by sharp devaluations.

Devaluations drive up prices of imports for ordinary Mexicans and tend to be covered prominently in national media. Presidents are commonly evaluated by the comparative value of the peso against the dollar at the beginning and end of their six-year terms.

President Enrique Peña Nieto, beset by corruption scandals, has a paltry 23 percent approval rating, according to a poll released by Reforma newspaper last week.

Although the peso has seen a steep decline in the four years of Peña's administration, from 13 per dollar in December 2012 to 18 per dollar on Monday, the currency's decline has not triggered the rise in inflation seen in previous devaluations.

Several factors play into this.

In 1995, the government was forced to allow the peso to float freely in the international currency market, allowing Mexican fiscal policy to focus on inflation rather than maintaining the exchange rate.

NAFTA's influence on the Mexican economy, in essence diversifying it from a commodities exporter into a manufacturing exporter, also helped soften the link between exchange rates and inflation.

Last week, Banco de México, or Banxico, the country's central bank, highlighted the U.S. election as a risk in its fiscal policy assessment.

"Going forward we cannot discount new episodes of volatility in international financial markets. Risks associated to geopolitical factors stand out, particularly, the possible consequences of the electoral process in the United States and foreseeable normalization measures in the monetary posture of the Federal Reserve," said Banxico.

But some analysts believe the peso's volatility has too many factors to make a direct correlation to Trump's poll numbers.

Win Thin, global head of emerging-market currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman, told The Wall Street Journal that oil prices and the Federal Reserve's monetary policy have a bigger effect on the peso than presidential polls.

“Clients aren’t saying, ‘I’m staying out of Mexico because Trump might win,’ " said Thin.