The third primary election of the Citizens' Action Party was scheduled for July 9, 2017 in order to elect PAC's presidential candidate for the 2018 Costa Rican general election. Albeit rumors about possible candidates included former candidate and former deputy Ottón Solís, then Vice-President Ana Helena Chacón and former president of Congress and then UN ambassador Juan Carlos Mendoza, all of them denied having aspirations at the moment. Instead, the first announcing his intention to be nominated was Minister Carlos Alvarado, former Minister of Social Issues and President of the Joint Social Welfare Institute and latter Minister of Labor under Luis Guillermo Solis' presidency. He was quickly followed by Economy Minister Welmer Ramos, both resigning their offices as the Constitution requires before February 2017. Congresswoman and former pre-candidate Epsy Campbell made her intentions public on March of the same year in what could have been Campbell's third attempt to be presidential nominee. But on March 27 Campbell withdraw from the race.

General elections were held in Costa Rica in 2018 to elect both the President and Legislative Assembly. The first round of the presidential election was held on 4 February 2018, with the two highest-ranked candidates being Christian singer and Congressman Fabricio Alvarado Muñoz from the conservative National Restoration Party and writer and former Minister Carlos Alvarado Quesada from the progressive Citizens' Action Party, gaining 24% and 21% of the votes respectively. As no candidate received more than 40% of the first round vote, a second round run-off election was held on 1 April 2018 and was won by Carlos Alvarado Quesada, with a landslide victory of 60.6% of the vote.