The PP focuses on plugging leaks to Vox due to fear that Abascal will be fired: "Only voting for Feijóo guarantees change"

The two phrases that the PP spokespersons have repeated most in the first week of the pre-campaign have been "finally" and "we are not going to let them pass even one." The first tries to show that Alberto Núñez Feijóo is not exactly caught off guard by the electoral advance, and the second sets the tone for the 50 days that remain until the appointment with the polls: frontal and constant attack in the discursive and clash of legal-institutional horns against Sánchez in the formal. There is consensus on the decisive and almost plebiscitary nature of these elections, and that is why speeches from past revolutions will be heard, in the face of a dog, without mercy or fear of over-braking. We enter the field of wrestling: almost anything goes.

Feijóo knows it. The poll favorite predicted before the Madrid PP board, behind closed doors, as this newspaper reported, "the mother of all battles" against Pedro Sánchez, and then warned the National Board of Directors of the Popular Party, also in private, that the Government parties are going to do "very dirty things", in his opinion. "They are going to try to manipulate people, there are going to be many traps," he stressed.

The PP's plan is to enhance the appearance of a binary election to encourage the useful vote: either Sánchez or Feijóo. In search of this second round effect, Genoa's strategy is, for now, not to step on the hose of its more than likely partner. No distractions from Cainite disputes with Vox, so as not to repeat "the mistake of 2023." But - and it is an important but - the truth is that the electoral battle that will define the future Government is, at this time, that of the correlation of forces between the PP and Vox. Because if the polls are not completely wrong, both parties will add up to a comfortable absolute majority in which the influence of the smaller partner will be measured by weight.

Santiago Abascal's party continues to rise in all the polls, while the PP maintains or even declines. The crisis in Ceuta, the international context and the climate of opposition that is felt in Spain are driving Vox to the skies. He gains points without getting off the bus, without having to propose anything, not even in terms of housing, but simply by invoking the kick to the board. The radical right is already approaching the psychological threshold of 70 seats, from which the logic of the overtake would be activated in four years. In other words, a strong Vox will be able to dedicate itself to its first and main objective: to prey on the PP to take away the hegemony of the bloc.

This idea was clearly stated by the former President of the Government, José María Aznar, on Monday: «A PP with 140 and a Vox with 60 is not the same as a PP with 165 and Vox with 35; The second formula allows us to face the country's problems, and I am not sure that the first formula allows it. This is what the campaign in the right bloc is about. Of first breaking the arithmetic of the wall and "kicking" Sánchez out of La Moncloa, yes, but also of a major and slow-burning struggle between the two right-wing parties, which will determine the distribution of roles in the post-Sánchez "national reconstruction."

Despite the lesson of 2023, when Vox scared a part of the electorate and the right died on the shore, four seats from the majority, the polls predict a huge transfer of votes from the PP to the ultra formation. Of no less than 1.2 million votes. And it doesn't stop increasing. That is why the Popular Party has begun the pre-campaign by once again treading discursive terrain on the border with Vox, to plug the leaks. First, by questioning the total guarantee of voting by mail, and then, by giving a twist to his immigration speech. And rushing to request the indictment of the PSOE, which the judge has rejected as premature, although he already sees "indications."

"We have to dispute that electorate" that swings between the popular and the ultra formation, explain sources from the PP's engine room. «We do not say the same things as Vox, and we have to compete for those who doubt between the two. Our main message to convince them is to lower taxes, security and the guarantee that by voting for the PP they will throw out Sánchez," the sources explain.

"Our strengths with respect to Vox are management and the ability to fire Sánchez," they insist. In other words, the way to stop Vox is the useful vote? «No, it is the guarantee of change; "We have to convince them that if they vote for Vox it is more difficult for Sánchez to leave and only if they vote for the PP, the change is a guarantee," adds a senior official from Genoa. But doesn't saying things that the Vox electorate likes make them end up voting for the original? "No, if you run a good campaign: the rejection of the PP brand among Vox voters is only between 8% and 9%," the sources explain. "And there is at least another 10% of the electorate that can vote for us," while "there are no longer so many transfers" between blocks.

Immigration and the crisis in Ceuta delimit the main battlefield of that "border" vote that could oscillate between the PP and Vox. In that sense, the star reform that Feijóo proposes is the change in the Immigration Law, as EL MUNDO announced on Thursday. What will it consist of? Immediate rejection at the border - both by land and by sea - of all immigrants who enter Spain irregularly. Triage in 72 hours for those who are already in Spanish territory. And once they have been identified, there will only be two "immediate" options: return or asylum. Those who are in one of the two procedures will go without interruption to a detention center. And the deadlines for repatriating them will be shortened as much as possible "in cases of crisis" or hybrid attacks, such as the one in Ceuta. For repatriations, agreements will be reached with "third countries" to prevent some nations of origin from torpedoing the return of their citizens, as has happened on many occasions with Morocco.

In the case of voting by mail, the controversy was not born from Feijóo's campaign, but he has entered fully into it, to try to find an intermediate solution. If Isabel Díaz Ayuso assured that she recommended that everyone not vote by mail, thus sowing doubts about the cleanliness of the system, and Borja Sémper replied that the PP trusts in the "guarantees" of the model, Feijóo placed himself between the two, closer to the latter. The president of the PP assured that he trusts Correos, but not in its directors, and that is why he will ask for additional guarantees from the Central Electoral Board. Rome locuta, finite cause... for now. Meanwhile, Vox does ask its followers to vote at the ballot box.

There are popular leaders who admit to having "a certain fear" that Vox will continue to escalate and complicate not only the formation of the hypothetical future Government, but also their own viability to undertake the necessary reforms. But that is not what has led Feijóo to go one more gear. The PP is not improvising, according to other sources in Genoa. The opposition leader prepared his campaign plan before the holidays. In a meeting of the party leadership in June, "the entire campaign was proposed, all 54 days," with the idea of ​​a total attack to "not give any respite" to Sánchez and "clog Vox." "We had been working since April or May," sources from Genoa acknowledge. It is a plan "susceptible to change, but with well-defined demographic, organic and political criteria." "In that meeting, we said: [Sánchez] catches us once, but he doesn't catch us twice." And it was also said: "We are ready to vote even if it is Christmas Eve."