The electoral results of the last electoral calls give some clues about the electoral behavior of Valencians according to the type of election they are facing. Normally, although there are exceptions depending on the political context and the state of the competitors, both the PP and the PSOE achieve better percentages in the general elections than in the regional ones.
Since 2011, the PP has obtained in the Valencian Community percentages of support in the state of 53.9% (2011); 31.5% (2015); 35.7% (2016); 18.7% (April 2019) and 23.2% (November 19). A percentage that compared to the regional elections -where 50.7% (2011), 27% (2015) and 19.3% (2019) were obtained- shows that the Valencian PP usually concentrates, as a rule, more support when it vote for a candidate for the Presidency of the Government.
The exception is the poor result of Pablo Casado in 2019 when it seemed that Ciudadanos could eat him and the party led by Albert Rivera gave him a good bite in the state rounds in April. However, in November, the PP already recovered that historical trend of adding more support in the general elections than in the regional elections and, just seven months later, it added almost 4 points more than in the regional elections.
For this reason, it is not surprising that, after the good result of the last regional elections of 28-M, where the popular ones went to 36.2% of the votes and more than 880,000 votes, in the next general ones -after having put the and its coalition government with Vox without the shocks experienced in other autonomies-, the PP can ascend, following the pattern of the last calls, up to 40% of the support. In this way, he would have at his fingertips the symbolic objective of one million votes -for which it is necessary to reach that percentage of 4 out of 10 votes- that the popular ones already exceeded in the different state calls of the period 1996-2011.
There is another data for the optimism of the popular. Traditionally, the PP improves in the Valencian Community the results it obtains at the state level when voting throughout Spain. Usually, the candidates for the three Valencian constituencies obtain better results than the overall result of the national PP. For example, in the two general elections of 2019, the PP obtained a better result in the Valencian Community than in Spain; Specifically, the PPCV surpassed the results of the PP as a whole for the State by 2 points and 2.2 points.
The behavior of the PSPV is similar with some nuance. And it is that in the case of the socialists, the support for the brand of the fist and the rose in a context of generals was even more pronounced in the two state calls of 2019 since one of its main competitors (Compromís) loses steam on the national stage .
The coincidence of the regional and general elections that same year 2019 in the Valencian Community made it possible to see very clearly the dual vote practiced by Valencians. That same day, in the general ballot box, the PSPV achieved 28% of the votes, while in the regional ballot box it remained at 24.4%. Later, when the elections for the Presidency of the Government were repeated, in November, the PSPV also managed to surpass the mark of the regional ones.
Again an exception. In 2015 and 2016 the result obtained in the regional ballot box and in the general ballot box was very even (see graph) since then the competitors of the Socialist Party on the left (Compromís, Podem and Esquerra Unida) went together to the elections.
A circumstance that will be repeated on this occasion with the presence of Sumar, although it will be necessary to see if this new experiment has the pull (which does not seem so) of the first Podemos by Pablo Iglesias who, in the general elections of 2015 and 2016 together with Compromís , first, and also adding the US, later, it widely surpassed the PSPV.
At that time, the coalitions to the left of the PSPV won nine seats and now they are satisfied with those 5 deputies (the benevolent CIS gives them up to 7) that would allow them, supposedly, to form their own parliamentary group in the Lower House apart from Yolanda Diaz.
The other great unknown of 23-J will be the behavior of Vox that, in principle, would have to fight with Sumar for that third place in Valencia and Alicante (the third and fourth constituencies with the most weight in Spain). Vox, as a national party, also improves its results in the generals (always comparing with respect to the regional ones). In April 2019, when both calls coincided, the extreme right achieved 40,000 more votes in one ballot box than in the other. Months later, it shot up to 18.6% of support (general as of November 2019).
For this reason, logic indicates that it would be above the 12.7% achieved on 23-J. However, other factors come into play here. And if the useful vote for the Socialist Party can be decisive, the concentration of the vote in favor of the PP (which was already seen in the regional elections) can prevent the extreme right from growing in the general elections.
