Aliança Catalana surges to third place in Catalan poll, threatening governing majority
A new Catalan government poll shows the far-right Aliança Catalana leaping from two seats to 23-25, overtaking Junts and competing with ERC for second place, while the PSC-led coalition risks losing its majority.
Poll results
The first 2026 barometer from Catalonia's Centre d'Estudis d'Opinió (CEO), released on Thursday, shows a reshaped political landscape. The Socialists' Party (PSC) of regional president Salvador Illa would still win an election, but with 36-38 seats, down from the 42 it secured in 2024. Esquerra Republicana (ERC), led by Oriol Junqueras, would place second with 24-26 seats, a modest recovery from its previous result. The poll's standout finding is the surge of Aliança Catalana, the far-right, xenophobic party headed by Sílvia Orriols, mayor of Ripoll. It would leap from its current two deputies to 23-25 seats, overtaking Junts per Catalunya, which would plummet to 16-18 seats, roughly half of its 2024 tally. Carles Puigdemont's party would lose up to 19 deputies. The People's Party (PP) and Vox, led by Ignacio Garriga, are tied at 12-13 seats each. The left-wing Comuns and the anti-capitalist CUP both register 4-5 seats.
- PSC
- 36 seats
- ERC
- 24 seats
- Aliança Catalana
- 23 seats
- Junts
- 16 seats
- PP
- 12 seats
- Vox
- 12 seats
- Comuns
- 4 seats
- CUP
- 4 seats
Coalition arithmetic
The current minority government relies on the PSC, ERC and Comuns. Their combined seat projection ranges from 64 to 69, meaning the coalition could fall short of the 68-seat absolute majority in the 135-seat parliament. The far-right bloc of Aliança and Vox would command up to 38 seats, or 28% of the chamber, a sharp rise from the 13 seats they hold today. This shift raises the prospect of a fragmented parliament where forming a stable government becomes more difficult.
Fieldwork and context
The survey interviewed 2,000 people face-to-face at home between 21 May and 25 June 2026. The fieldwork began just after the Andalusian regional elections, where the PP lost its absolute majority, and unfolded during two major political scandals: the indictment of former Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero over the Plus Ultra airline bailout, and the "caso Leire" affecting the Socialist party's internal affairs. The CEO barometer, normally published in the first quarter, was delayed by an administrative bottleneck in renewing the accreditation of polling firms, a process that was not resolved until March 2026 after the previous director, Jordi Muñoz, had left the contracts half-finished.
