“I knew it would go well, but not that it would turn out so well.” This was revealed by Alberto Núñez Feijóo in an informal conversation with the journalists who cover his campaign, in Ciudad Real, where he moved having slept for just three hours after the debate he held on Monday night with Pedro Sánchez.
And this “coming out so well”, according to the leader of the PP, translates into the fact that what he has been chasing since the beginning of the campaign, that is to say, the useful vote, which is now in Vox, may have seeing in him a president capable of standing up to Sánchez, and the only one who can make him stop being president.
For Feijóo, the Vox voters who saw the debate are currently in two situations: “either thinking of changing their vote, or having already changed their vote” to give it to the PP. The main reason, according to the leader of the PP, is that Sánchez “is prepared to govern by losing”, and this can only be avoided by concentrating the vote on the popular ones.
In this aspect, Feijóo wants to reduce the euphoria that he saw on Monday night at the headquarters of the PP and that he saw yesterday both at the Atocha station, with the people crossing, and in the streets of Ciudad Real, where those approaching addressed him as future president. “The elections have not been won. Only one debate has been won”, underlines Feijóo, “and the worst thing is relaxation and euphoria”.
The popular leader will continue his campaign as he had designed it, with two daily events in different provinces. Nothing is done yet, they insist in the PP, but they also recognize that this euphoria will become an incentive to make a fuss during the last week of the campaign.
The Feijóo team assures that what Monday’s face-to-face has meant cannot be translated into votes, at least for the moment, but it is clear that it constitutes “a blow to the campaign”, a “turning point positive” for the PP, because many considered Feijóo the winner, but feared that he would not be able to govern. Now, as they say in Genoa, they know that with him you can win and rule. Feijóo reveals that he does not quite understand what happened to Sánchez in the debate, although those around him believe that he had raised so many expectations that, since they were not fulfilled, he has disappointed his own. They saw him “overwhelmed, unhinged and a tremendous liar”.
However, the leader of the PP assures that Sánchez is not finished, and publicly warns citizens about this. For Sánchez, he said, “all that remains is for the ballot boxes to allow him to block the country”, as happened in 2019 with Mariano Rajoy. It may be that they won’t let us form a government, that they block the country” and all with one intention, “to go to elections again” in which the polls will benefit him more than the polls now predict.
