Pedro Sánchez has finally brought forward the elections and the demographic starting point is the same as a month ago, and the previous month, and the previous month: the PP at the head of the polls, Vox and Aliança Catalana reaping the best fruits of the disaster of the legislature, and the PSOE at levels of political collapse.
The Sigma Dos survey that we publish today was carried out from September 22 to October 1, so it reflects the Maricarmen effect in its fullness, although not its outcome: the defeat of the Government in Congress with the rejection of its two housing decrees. Precisely, the parliamentary blow that has led Sánchez to call the elections early.
An electoral call always shakes up the polls, perhaps even in the sense that the PSOE has been waiting for three years: for its electorate to be encouraged. The level of poll consumption this weekend in Moncloa will have been lysergic, but the problem they will have found is that the margins are too narrow.
The PSOE has lost 1.5 million votes since the last elections and its trend continues to be downward. In the Sigma Two Panel, Sánchez has dropped 2.8 points in voting intention since May and is approaching 100 seats. How many lost votes can you recover in the current situation between now and November 29?
The socialists have a pool of undecided voters of 6.9%, about 540,000 votes, while another 60,000 (0.8%) leave those who abstain. These would be the most recoverable, but even if all of them decided to vote for the PSOE again, it would not be enough.
There is something that tends to be forgotten and that is that Sánchez already worked the miracle in 2023. He lost the elections, but the distribution of seats, the good result of Sumar and the lack of scruples to bring Junts into the equation allowed him to revalidate the Government by a margin of only four deputies. That is, to repeat a similar play you cannot lose a single vote.
And the big problem for the PSOE is that many people have left with little chance of returning. The flight of socialist voters towards the center and the right is a very consolidated trend in the polls and someone who has made that trip, from voting for the PSOE to stating that they will do so for PP or Vox, has a difficult time returning. In today's poll, the data is that the PSOE gives 510,000 votes to the PP and another 367,000 to Vox.
Nor does Sánchez manage to regain strength with the new voters, whether they are young people, abstentionists or naturalized immigrants. The favorite parties of the new voters are Vox (13.9%) and the PP (12.1%), with the PSOE at a very poor 6.6%.
The Government's other big problem is the disintegration of Sumar. Renamed Frente Amplio and still without a candidate, it is almost impossible to gather the three million votes in 2023. Sumar and Podemos, together, still have 10% of the votes. At the level of the best IU of the old days, but totally insufficient to gain a majority with the PSOE. In his case, the rise of Vox relegates him in all provinces to fourth place, in the best of cases, outside the distribution of seats. Right now, Sumar/ Podemos would only obtain deputies in six provinces, when in 2023 they had representation in 19.
There is, finally, the diffuse battle to be the party with the most votes. It is rather a theory, according to which a rising PSOE in a favorable electoral context can challenge the victory of a PP that has been reduced by the advance of Vox. Today, with the popular seven points ahead of the socialists, that possibility is not seen in any corner of the polls.
A lot of epic is needed for this type of unexpected promotion, the one that Sánchez is looking for with the housing crisis and this electoral advance. His intervention this Monday at La Moncloa has already been rally-like, but more sober than heroic. In the end, it is not so easy to convince millions of people that after eight years of making housing worse, you need another eight to improve it.
