(CNN) -- Mexican President Felipe Calderon will wake up a lame duck Monday. How lame will depend largely on nationwide midterm elections Sunday.



Mexican President Felipe Calderon has three years left in his six-year term.



On the ballot will be 500 federal legislators, six governors and mayors and local legislators in 11 states. Although Calderon has three years left in his six-year term and is not on Sunday's ballot, many analysts see the election as a referendum on his performance and his party's nine-year reign on the presidency.



By most accounts, Calderon's party will fare well.



"He's going to get a positive vote," said Larry Birns, director of the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs. "The nation feels he is doing a better job than they imagined he would."



Low expectations may be understandable, given the circumstances under which Calderon came to power.



After a bitterly fought race that polls indicated was too close to call, the nation went to the polls July 2, 2006, to pick a successor to President Vicente Fox. The race was so close that the results were not verified until a controversial decision two months later. Calderon's margin of victory was less than 1 percent.



Losing candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador refused to accept the results and announced himself the winner. Fistfights broke out in the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies.



The first three years of Calderon's tenure have not been much smoother. Perhaps most famously, the president declared war on the drug cartels that have taken hold of Mexico, spreading corruption, fear and violence to all corners of the nation.



The war's outcome remains uncertain, but there's no doubt about the human cost: About 10,000 people have died in drug violence since Calderon took office in December 2006.



The political fallout also has been costly. One U.S. politician said Mexico was undergoing a civil war. A Pentagon report said the nation was in danger of becoming a failed state.



Calderon's job got tougher when the bottom fell out of the global economy late last year and the H1N1 flu outbreak drew the world's attention to Mexico this year.



But Calderon's actions in the face of such adversity have helped his standing, some analysts say.



"Calderon has become increasingly popular in the country because he did project a certain amount of strength in the anti-drug war," Birns said. "He did stand up to the United States on certain things, like swine flu."



Calderon's aggressive management of the swine flu crisis -- in which he shut down schools, businesses and all public gatherings for more than a week to stop spread of the disease -- has given him higher credibility, said Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue policy institute.



But Calderon's personal popularity may not help his party in the legislative elections.



"The question is whether Calderon has coattails," said Ana Maria Salazar, a Mexico City columnist and political talk show host.



Calderon is head of the National Action Party, known as PAN. The other two main parties are the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), which narrowly lost the 2006 presidential election, and the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI), which had a stranglehold on the presidency from 1929 until the 2000. PAN candidate Fox -- Calderon's predecessor -- broke that hold nine years ago.



The PAN has the most seats in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies but does not have a majority in either. The party could lose seats after Sunday, as most polls show the PRI holding a slight lead.



"We will see the resurgence of the PRI," said Robert Pastor, a Latin America national security adviser for President Carter in the late 1970s.



The PRD, he said, has largely discredited itself through internal division.



"And the PAN has been overseeing a government that has shunted from one crisis to another," Pastor said.



Still, some observers say PRI inroads may not make much difference.



"It will not change the balance of
What is the party expected to do? Who is expected to do well despite years of troubles? Who is is not on ballot?
fare well. Mexican President Felipe Calderon Mexican President Felipe Calderon
question: What is the party expected to do?, answer: fare well. | question: Who is expected to do well despite years of troubles?, answer: Mexican President Felipe Calderon | question: Who is is not on ballot?, answer: Mexican President Felipe Calderon