The campaign that Sánchez wanted to advance is complicated for the PSOE between the railway crisis and the alleged corruption

The electoral advance was also a bet by Pedro Sánchez for the calendar. After the failure of the housing decrees, the president took advantage of the situation to call the polls on the earliest possible date. In the PSOE they believed that 29-N gave them room to shake off wear and tear with the 'epic of the comeback', mobilize the progressive electorate and present the campaign as a choice between two models of the country. But bringing forward the elections carried an obvious risk: in such a short race, any crisis could eat away at the message, and this is what has happened both with the Urda accident and with the new ramification of the Koldo case that the UCO is investigating.

The socialist pre-campaign had started with a very clear roadmap. Ferraz wanted to take advantage of the calendar to, on the one hand, place the PP and Vox within the same international current, with the visit of Javier Milei or the midterm elections in the US. And, on the other hand, exploiting left-wing flags, such as housing—the trigger for the electoral advance—which had to return to the center with the 11-N strike, historical memory with the anniversary of Franco's death on November 20, or feminism with the 25-N demonstration. The plan was to mobilize the left with a festive campaign, focused on rights and proposals. The Urda accident disrupted that script before the PSOE could reach the official campaign.

With 69 dead and dozens injured, the Toledo accident was the second fatal railway accident in less than a year. The shock went through the entire country, but it also had an immediate effect on politics: the pre-campaign was put on hold and the PSOE found itself on the defensive in a particularly delicate area such as train security. The crisis ended with the resignation of Óscar Puente. Until then, the minister designated by the management was also one of the faces that the socialists wanted to bring to the electoral forefront: he headed the list for Valladolid and served as one of the main spokespersons for the pre-campaign.

His name will remain on the ballot, but his departure from the Government has removed him from the campaign and forced the PSOE to recalculate. Since then, the socialists have tried to turn his resignation into an argument that differentiates them from the PP with respect to political responsibility.

And just when the socialists were preparing to return to the rallies (with three events in a row from Friday to Sunday), the ghosts of the Koldo case have returned to fly over the Ferraz headquarters after the new operation launched by the UCO. It returns to the foreground a cause that has already caused some of the PSOE's biggest crises and once again places corruption at the center of the pre-campaign. Sánchez brought forward the elections to set the times and the story, but the campaign has ended up chaining blows that force the party to change the script: the accident in Toledo, the resignation of Puente and now the return of the alleged corruption.

The "disaffection" due to the Urda accident

In the PSOE, Urda has also left a difficult week in the mood of the party. Many went from the euphoria of a possible "comeback" to giving up any possibility as they observed "disaffection" in the voters. The shock over the death of 69 people forced the pre-campaign to be suspended and placed the Government in a crisis in which the Minister of Transport became a toxic asset for the campaign.

There appears the political contradiction that the resignation has not erased. The Government defends that Puente did not have to leave because he was not directly responsible, but it also presents his departure as a decision of political responsibility. Sánchez had asked him to continue and, after the minister announced his resignation, he praised the gesture. In Moncloa they insist that the president did not know he was going to resign, but the sequence leaves an uncomfortable question: if his continuity was compatible with the management of the crisis, why has his departure now become proof that "we are not all equal"?

The socialists try to take this discussion to their own ground by proposing the new pre-campaign axis around public services capable of responding to an emergency and contrast it with the cuts and "bad policy" that they attribute to the PP. But the campaign returns with the mourning still very present and with the risk that this message will be perceived as an attempt to extract political gain from the tragedy. The first test will be how Sánchez manages to resume the rallies this weekend, those prior to the official start of the campaign and which party voices assure are the "transition" ones.

The ghost of corruption returns

But, in addition, the new UCO operation opens a front that the PSOE knows well. In Moncloa and Ferraz they try to contain its impact: they frame the proceedings in a case that has been open for years, they deny any link between Sánchez and the detainees and reject that one of them was the president's driver. In the PSOE there are voices that go a little further, questioning the moment in which the operation takes place. Patxi López joked in public about the "coincidence" that it arrived in the middle of the pre-campaign and some territorial leaders share that appeal to the already well-known lawfare. "We are a little tired with the current situation of the campaigns and the interventions of the UCO," summarizes a leader with a seat, who sees no sense in the actions of the Civil Guard.

The majority are those who consider that, in any case, the Koldo case is "burned" and will not change the Socialists' vote, although it may mobilize the PP electorate. In his opinion, the alleged offer of a lawyer from that party to Koldo García in exchange for information against the Government may have the opposite effect: activating socialist voters. "The two things are tied. In a technical tie," he concludes.

But the truth is that the new operation breaks into one of the most complicated flanks for the PSOE. The socialists arrive at 29-N after a streak of poor regional results in which many pointed out corruption as one of the factors of wear and tear, although it does not alone explain those setbacks. And it is not a minor issue for the polls: the October DYM survey for 20 minutes placed corruption as the fourth factor with the greatest capacity to influence the vote, behind housing, immigration and the economy. Its weight was greater among PP and Vox voters than among PSOE voters, which also points to its ability to mobilize the right.