Sánchez calls snap Spanish election for 29 November as polls show PP and Vox majority

Snap election called

Pedro Sánchez announced on Monday 5 October that general elections will be held early, on Sunday 29 November. He justified the decision after Congress rejected two decrees aimed at Spain's housing crisis. The campaign now opens with the parties under two months from the ballot.

Party preparations

The Partido Popular's National Board met on Thursday 8 October and launched Alberto Núñez Feijóo's pre-campaign. The board approved a campaign team led by secretary general Miguel Tellado, with Borja Sémper and Ester Muñoz as campaign spokespeople and Elías Bendodo in charge of studies and polling. Alma Ezcurra, a 39-year-old MEP and vice-secretary of sectoral coordination, will prepare the PP electoral programme, an appointment announced on 7 October. The board also postponed about twenty regional and provincial congresses that had been planned before the end of the year.

On postal voting, Feijóo endorsed doubts first raised by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the president of the Community of Madrid. He said the Junta Electoral Central will be asked for "garantías adicionales" on that method of voting.

Housing protests and the polls

The campaign opens against the backdrop of protests over housing, which intensified after the death on Wednesday 7 October of Maricarmen, an 87-year-old woman whose eviction had fuelled the movement. Despite the protests, the polls show the right ahead. Minister Óscar Puente believes the PSOE will come first, while Félix Bolaños suggested there could be surprises on election day.

What the polls show

InvyMark for laSexta, published Friday 9 October, gave the PP 32.8% of the vote, the PSOE 28%, Vox 18.8% and Sumar 6.3%. Podemos stood at 3.2%, ERC at 1.9% and Junts at 1.2%. PP and Vox together reached 51.6%, while the current coalition government would reach only 34.3%.

40dB, polling for El País and Cadena SER with interviews on Wednesday and Thursday, also put PP and Vox above 50%, close to 200 seats. In that survey Vox would take between 63 and 74 seats, up from 33, while the PP would win between 123 and 140, against the 137 it holds now. The PSOE would lose nine seats. Imop for El Confidencial gave the PP 130 seats and Vox 70, with one UPN seat bringing the right to 201, above the 176 needed for an absolute majority.

Sánchez at the centre

Gonzalo Bernardos, an economics professor at the University of Barcelona, argued on X that the vote will turn on the prime minister himself.

For the first time, the next general elections will be a covert referendum: Sánchez yes / Sánchez no.

He added that the parties' programmes will matter little to voters.

Almost everyone already knows how they will vote in that referendum.

The left outside the PSOE is also in flux. 40dB measured the left alternative at 7.6% when Sumar and Podemos run separately, rising to 9.5% if Podemos joins a broad front. The composition of that front has not yet been settled.

Timeline to the vote

The next steps are the campaign itself and the ballot on 29 November. The PP has set its programme, spokespeople and polling team, while the left must still decide how its parties organise. Fieldwork from 40dB showed both blocs mobilising, with the share of 2023 voters who say they will certainly vote rising to 76% on the right and 72% on the left.