Spaniards have eight weeks to decide whether Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez should extend his eight-year tenure, or make way for a right-wing administration that could dramatically change the national trajectory — not least because it could include the far-right Vox party. Here, POLITICO breaks down the main factors that will shape the Nov. 29 snap election. The immediate spark may have been nationwide housing protests, but the race will also be shaped by Spain’s political extremes, the unresolved migrant crisis in Ceuta and geopolitics in the age of Trump.
Spain’s two largest parties — Sánchez’s center-left Socialist Party and Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s center-right People’s Party — are expected to get roughly the same results as they did when voters went to the polls in 2023, with both falling short of a governing majority. That means the next government will be led by whoever can cobble together the largest parliamentary alliance. Polls put the People’s Party at around 34 percent, ahead of Sánchez’s Socialists, who are backed by 26% of voters.
PP leader Feijóo says he is comfortable governing with the far-right Vox party, which is polling at around 18 percent, according to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls. The PP already governs alongside Vox in several regions. Sánchez’s hopes of reelection hinge on pulling off the same unlikely feat he achieved three years ago, when he managed to form a parliamentary majority with far-left, regional and separatist forces.
This time around, that option appears to be out of reach as a result of the collapse of the country’s left-wing political forces. Sumar — the junior partner in Sánchez’s coalition government — has plummeted in the polls and is currently leaderless. Health Minister Mónica García is among the frontrunners to head the new alliance, which plans to present itself as the “Broad Front” later this month.
It will be up to its eventual leader to try to forge a viable left-wing electoral alliance with bitter rivals Podemos, as well as big personalities like housing activist and former Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau. Over the past decade, the far-right Vox party has evolved from a fringe group into a major political force — and, now, a plausible coalition partner in a national PP government. In contrast to when national elections were last held in Spain, Vox has a clear track record of teaming up with the PP at the local and regional levels.
The two parties currently govern together in Extremadura, Aragón, Castilla y León and Andalusia, and previously ruled in Valencia and Murcia. Within those governments, Vox has successfully pressured the PP into adopting tougher migration policies and denouncing European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s Green Deal. Some PP-Vox governments have also replaced policies on violence against women with a broader “intra-family” framing that waters down the gender-specific nature of such crimes, and rolled back LGBTQ+ protections.
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