Will abstention decide these elections?
It will be decisive, because the fewer people who go to vote, the better the result will be for the right.
Because?
Because the right is usually less abstentionist than the left and polls also show that since Sánchez arrived in Moncloa it has been hypermobilized.
I left, hyperdemobilized?
The traditional PSOE voter is bewildered and his electorate divided by identity issues…
And doesn’t the recovered economy or declining unemployment improve the vote for Sánchez?
If the economy went bad, it would be disastrous for any government; on the other hand, when it goes well, it does not necessarily score in favor.
And the fear that the PP will damage this progress?
The right uses its image as a good economic manager to make people believe that a PP government will not spoil it.
What are the identity issues that the PP already capitalizes on in the polls?
Those that have to do with national and territorial identity, in addition to those that generate emotions beyond their real incidence such as the trans law or the law of only yes is yes.
Do these issues influence more than the progress of the economy or government management?
Even PSOE voters, some of them old, when we ask them if they will vote or not this time, the issues they say they will abstain from are the law of only yes is yes, the trans law or the pardons for pro-independence people. ..
The rest of the left is not divided?
For example, in the face of pardons for pro-independence: the right is against it; the left, in favor, and those of the PSOE are divided in half in favor or against.
Is the pro-independence call for abstention already detected in the polls?
In fact, recent data from Ipsos show a drop in the participation intention of both left-wing and independent voters.
Can it be a decisive fall?
What makes it more relevant than on other occasions is that, for example in the 2011 elections, when the participation of the left-wing vote fell, it was offset by the increase in that of the third block, that of nationalist or regionalist parties. Now, no, because we see demobilization in both.
Only in Catalonia?
And in the Basque Country, where Bildu is profiting in front of the PNB, already in the polls, its social agenda and its role as an interlocutor with the central Government.
Does the PSOE pay the polls the cost of the government coalition with Podemos?
Every coalition government has a cost in itself because it is two parties that are permanently competing. And this competition, which we were not used to, gives the impression of more confrontation than it actually is.
Spain, in spite of everything, is still on average center-left?
In this axis to which you allude, there are more Spaniards who declare themselves left or centre-left than right or centre-right, but not everything is rational in demoscopy.
How we got here?
In recent years, it was the economy that focused the political debate in the three consecutive crises that this Executive has managed: the crisis that he encountered, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine…
But he has not capitalized on this management.
Another reason is that he also promised that the Next Generation funds would reach the citizen’s pocket and this has not happened.
Whoever wins the center – it used to be said – wins the elections. Is it true again?
The center still matters and a lot. That is why voters who define themselves as center-left and center-right can be affected and react to the PP-Vox agreements.
And punish the PP? What does it depend on?
How, as we observe in the surveys, these agreements are staged. And its content: it’s not so much who you agree with as what you agree with, and I’m referring to all those issues that polarize and have not been resolved.
Is the effective anti-Vox strategy a sanitary cordon or that it governs and fails like everyone else?
If the extreme right were to decline now, it would grow again if the social tensions that cause identity questions reappear.
Do the tensions that mobilize the right demobilize the left?
And in this sense, the relations between the Spanish Government and Bildu have been relevant these days in the polls…
Success of the PP making them profitable or mistake of the Government of Sánchez not explaining them?
In the PP there are identity issues, such as abortion, which also harm it because it can seem close to Vox; that’s why he talks more about ETA and it seems he’s right here.
Why is it so effective in voting?
Because the PP may not get votes like that, but it discourages the left.
