- Lead. Spain votes on 29 November, and surveys project a right-wing majority that would end Pedro Sánchez’s governing coalition and return the People’s Party to power — with Vox support — for the first time since 2018.
- Fact. Polls at the campaign’s October launch gave the Socialists 112 seats, down from 121 in the last election; closing that gap by polling day requires a substantial late swing.
- Stake. A PP-Vox coalition would reopen contentious debates over immigration policy, Catalan autonomy, and housing regulation that defined the past two parliamentary cycles.
What Triggered an Early Vote
Pedro Sánchez called the snap election on 5 October after his minority government’s housing relief package was defeated in parliament, blocked by the Catalan pro-independence party Junts. The vote — originally scheduled for 2027 — was moved up to 29 November, giving parties less than eight weeks to campaign. Sánchez framed the dissolution as a direct appeal to voters: the left needed a stronger mandate to deliver on rent controls and social housing construction, and the existing coalition had been rendered unworkable by Junts’s obstruction. According to Al Jazeera, Sánchez told reporters the election was “a choice between a Spain that advances or a Spain that goes backwards.”
PP Leads, Vox Surges, Left Reorganises
Opinion polls throughout October consistently placed a coalition led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s People’s Party, with backing from Santiago Abascal’s far-right Vox, as the most probable governing outcome. Feijóo has centred his campaign on three themes: corruption allegations against members of Sánchez’s circle, the cost-of-living crisis, and what he describes as the government’s surrender to separatist parties. “Spain needs a future, and he needs to be in the past,” Feijóo told a rally in Madrid in October, drawing a sharp contrast with Sánchez’s tenure.
On the left, the coalition’s junior partner Sumar fragmented shortly after the election was called. Yolanda Díaz stepped down as the alliance’s lead candidate; former Barcelona mayor Ada Colau replaced her as the frontwoman of the reconstituted Broad Front, a grouping that includes most of Sumar’s component parties — though not Podemos, which is competing separately. The split risks dividing the progressive vote at a critical moment for Sánchez.
The Housing Bet
Sánchez’s campaign is built almost entirely on the housing crisis. Rents in Madrid and Barcelona have risen sharply over the past three years, and eviction rates have climbed as tourism and remote-work demand pushed up property prices in major cities. Internal Socialist Party projections suggest the housing issue resonates most strongly with voters under 40, whom the party sees as a key demographic if it is to close the polling gap. Critics, including PP, argue that government rent-control pilots produced shortages rather than relief — a charge the Socialists dispute.
An International Argument
The day after US midterm elections on 4 November produced significant losses for Donald Trump’s Republican Party, Sánchez told journalists that the result was evidence of a global, right-wing populist “wave” crumbling — a signal, he argued, of where the broader democratic mood is heading. The comment was an attempt to frame Spain’s November 29 vote within a larger European and transatlantic trend, pointing to recent setbacks for nationalist governments across Europe. Whether that narrative lands with Spanish voters who are focused primarily on domestic prices rather than international electoral patterns remains the central uncertainty of the campaign’s final weeks.