Pedro Sánchez’s strategy of erecting himself as a wall against a PP-Vox government seems to be working and a remobilization, albeit partial, of the left-wing bloc is observed. On the right, the PP remains in a strong position and is resisting the onslaught of Vox, especially among the groups of voters most attached to order and stability.
These are two of the conclusions of the latest survey by Cluster17, a French polling company that proposes an innovative electoral analysis based on the segmentation of Spanish society into 16 political-ideological groups, which correspond to the 16 Spanish political tribes.
With a sample of 1,447 people and carried out online between June 30 and July 1, the survey detects a notable movement among the left-wing tribes at the gates of the start of the 23-J campaign. The PSOE is ahead of Sumar in voting intentions in the six tribes that are clearly on the left (multiculturalists, progressives, labor, anti-system, republicans and social democrats), which would indicate that Pedro Sánchez is capitalizing on his call for a useful vote.
Significantly, the socialists have surpassed Sumar even among the multiculturalists, which is the tribe ideologically furthest to the left, radically in favor of redistribution and very favorable to feminism and environmentalism. 41% of multiculturalists would now vote for Pedro Sánchez compared to 34% for Yolanda Díaz. In fact, the turnaround in this group is explained not by a great rise in socialism but by the collapse of Sumar. Since the last poll, multiculturalists have fallen 17 percentage points, which could reflect discomfort with the tough negotiation with Podemos to form the electoral list.
Likewise, the Prime Minister has a solid advantage among the progressives (he has 56% compared to 24% for Sumar), the anti-system (57% to 15%) or the social democrats (58% to 13%). Sumar only retains the leadership in the tribe of the angry, a group that is not very politicized but radical, in which 43% say they will vote for Díaz and 31% for Sánchez.
Where the PSOE loses ground is in the tribe of the republicans, a group aligned with the left in its rejection of the monarchy and clericalism, but more liberal in economic terms, and ambivalent on cultural issues. Junts per Catalunya now leads this group with 30% of voting intentions, followed by PP (24%) and PSOE (22%).
On the other hand, the socialist leader has made substantial advances in the eclectics, a tribe that usually votes little, although when it does, it tends to lean towards the PSOE. The PP has dropped six percentage points, reaching 18% of voting intentions compared to 47% of the Socialists, who rise twelve points in this group. In fact, the PP falls back in two other tribes where Sánchez improves: the Social Democrats (the PP has dropped from 22% to 14%) and the angry (from 14% to 9%).
The PP, however, remains in a strong position. He overwhelmingly dominates among conservatives (88%), liberals (86%) and traditionalists (86%), three tribes where he does not face any electoral competition. In the first and third, the PP has improved substantially since the last poll and has done so at the expense of Vox: it has risen 21 points in the conservatives and nine in the traditionalists, while Santiago Abascal’s party has fallen by a proportion similar.
The PP also maintains its leadership in the authoritarian (66%) and the rooted (52%). These are two tribes very attached to order and stability and surely for these reasons Vox is stagnant. The rooted, a traditionally hinged tribe between the PP and PSOE, is now clearly leaning towards the popular and has turned its back on Pedro Sánchez.
There is only one tribe on the right where Vox is significantly gaining ground on the PP: the anti-interventionists. This is a group that is categorically opposed to any form of state intervention and collectivism, but which, due to its liberal conception of society, supports surrogacy or homoparental adoption. It is one of the most disputed groups between PP and Vox, but the far-right party seems to be clearly imposing itself. Santiago Abascal has a voting intention of 68% (12 points more than in the last poll), compared to 29% for Alberto Nuñez Feijóo, who has left 14 points.
Vox also leads in two other tribes: anti-assistance (with 53% compared to 28% of the PP), where it remains stable, and especially within the patriots, the tribe furthest to the right of the spectrum, with 82% to 18 %, and where it registers a slight growth.
The Cluster17 survey also measures support for a coalition government between PP and Vox, and between PSOE and Sumar. Neither of them convinces the majority of Spaniards. Only 34% are in favor of the right-wing alliance (including 16% strongly in favor) and 57% are against (including 45% strongly against). It is interesting that the tribe of conservatives is mostly against it (37% support it and 55% reject it) and also that 36% of the liberals doubt it and answer that they do not know if they are in favor or against it. It contrasts with the enthusiasm of the patriots (98% in favor), the anti-interventionists (91%), the authoritarians (88%) or the traditionalists (79%). It is significant that 44% of those with roots, that tribe that has now moved away from the PSOE, say they are very much in favor of a PP-Vox government.
The PSOE-Sumar coalition arouses similar rejection. Only 37% are in favor (including 19% very favorable) and 53% are against (including 41% very against). There is no unanimous position in the left tribes. While there is strong support among multiculturalists (98%) and Labor (84%), the other groups on the left, while approving of it, are less enthusiastic: progressives 72%, anti-establishment 67% and social democrats by 49%. Instead, a majority of Republicans are against it (58% to 41%), while skepticism is rampant among those who are angry: 35% are in favor, 2% against and 38% don’t know. 81% of the eclectic are against it. The rejection is softer among the entrenched, but a significant 45% declare themselves very much against it.
The assessment that each tribe makes of the four main political candidates is also interesting. Yolanda Díaz and Pedro Sánchez have a very similar evaluation structure, with their best scores in the same groups (multiculturalists, progressives, labor and anti-system), which shows that there is very strong electoral competition between the two parties in the same spaces.
To the right of the political spectrum, it can be seen that the leader of the PP is more popular than that of Vox. Feijóo has an advantage over Abascal in terms of valuation in all the tribes except two: authoritarians and patriots.
Finally, it is interesting to look at the data on the probability of voting, which shows that the right is much more mobilized than the Spanish left in view of 23-J. The intention to vote for the PP is by far the strongest of the four main parties, with two tribes scoring above 8 (on a scale of 0 to 10) the probability of going to vote for Alberto Nuñez Feijóo and others four above 7. The PSOE, on the other hand, only has a single tribe (the anti-system) that scores its probability of going to vote for Pedro Sánchez above 7.
