There is a question the People’s Party needs to answer before proposing a possible motion of no confidence against Pedro Sánchez: not only whether its own voters want Junts to back it, but whether Junts voters want it to do so. And the answer offered by the Cluster17 survey is decisive.
Only 7% of the electors who declare they voted for Junts per Catalunya consider that the party should support a potential no-confidence motion by the PP against Sánchez’s government. The 93% are opposed.
The contrast with the electorates of the right is very wide. Among PP voters, 84.9% want Junts to back the initiative; among Vox voters, the figure reaches 79%. In the overall group of voters of PP, Vox and Junts —the only ones to whom this question was asked—, 80.1% respond in favor, compared to 8% who oppose, another 8% who do not know and 3.9% who do not answer.
The aggregated result, therefore, hides the main difference. Support is very high among PP and Vox voters and practically disappears when the question is posed to the electorate of the party whose deputies would be necessary to push the operation forward.
The majority that the PP does not have
Between PP voters and Junts voters there are almost 78 points of difference in support for a no-confidence motion. The gap between Vox voters and Junts voters is 72 points.
“Support is very high among PP and Vox voters and practically disappears when asking Junts voters.”
For the PP, these differences matter more for parliamentary viability than the high backing the initiative receives among its own voters. A no-confidence motion is not decided in a poll, but in Congress, and Junts’ MPs would have to back an operation that rejects an overwhelming majority of their electorate.
The Popular Party may interpret the 84.9% among its voters as a signal that there is a clear expectation within its space: if Junts can help remove Sánchez, it should do so. But Junts voters appear to interpret their party’s role in a very different way.
The 7% who would back the motion should not go unnoted, though its size is very small. Among PP voters, eight in ten want Junts to back the initiative. Among Vox voters, it is nearly eight in ten. Among Junts voters, only about one in fourteen. The electorate whose deputies would need to facilitate an alternative majority to Sánchez’s government is, therefore, the least willing to do so.
This compels looking beyond a strict left-right divide. Junts can align with the PP on certain economic or institutional debates and maintain deep differences with it on territorial issues. It can vote against the socialist government on certain initiatives and negotiate with it on others. Pressuring Sánchez does not necessarily mean wanting Feijóo to take his place. This is one of the important nuances when interpreting the 93% rejection.
Rejecting the motion does not equal backing Sánchez
The survey question does not measure sympathy for Pedro Sánchez or satisfaction with the Government, but the willingness for Junts to facilitate a motion of no confidence led by the PP. A voter may be dissatisfied with Sánchez and, at the same time, not consider it appropriate that their party contribute to bringing the PP to La Moncloa.
“Pressuring Sánchez does not necessarily mean wanting Feijóo to take his place”
The data about the future of the legislature allow clarifying this position. Across Spaniards in general, 44.6% think Sánchez should call early elections and 41.7% prefer that the legislature finish its term. Another 6.2% opt for a confidence vote and 5.4% for the president to resign and be replaced by another socialist leader.
Among Junts voters, however, preferences are different. 59.1% want Sánchez to finish the legislature and 28.4% prefer early elections.
The comparison also helps separate two options that might seem close. Among Junts voters, 28.4% want early elections, but only 7% back their party supporting a motion from the PP. Wishing for the legislature to end early does not, therefore, equal wanting Junts to enable Feijóo to come to power.
“Wanting the legislature to end early does not equal wanting Junts to enable Feijóo to come to power”
The position also has parliamentary logic. While Junts is needed to build majorities, it retains the capacity to negotiate with the Government and condition certain votes. Facilitating a no-confidence motion would mean using that position directly to make a PP-led alternative possible. The survey does not reveal what conditions could modify its voters’ stance. It does show that the starting point would be particularly difficult for any such agreement.
The key
Over recent years, nationalist and independence parties have occupied a central role in governance. In the case of Junts, their leverage does not come so much from their electoral size but from the fact that their seats can be decisive when PSOE and PP fail to secure a sufficient majority on their own. Hence the debate about a motion of no confidence cannot be limited to whether Junts is at odds with the Government or not. They can withdraw support for Sánchez without automatically delivering those votes to the PP.
For the conservatives, obtaining them would require some kind of agreement. If the PP needs Junts for a no-confidence motion, the pro-independence formation can demand conditions. If Génova is not willing to accept them, the operation would not go ahead; and if it accepts them, it would have to bear the political cost of that agreement before its own electorate and that of Vox. The poll sets a starting point: the Junts electoral base is not asking its leaders to facilitate a PP victory.
The figure of 59.1% in favor of Sánchez finishing the legislature reinforces that idea. The Junts voter does not appear in the poll as an elector particularly keen to precipitate a change of government in Madrid, and when the specific possibility that their party contribute to a PP motion is posed, the rejection reaches 93%.
The problem for Feijóo
For the PP leader there is, in addition, a difficulty within his own space. 84.9% of his voters want Junts to back a motion of no confidence. Also 81.4% consider that Sánchez should call early elections. Among Vox voters, the demand for an electoral advance is even higher: 90.8% want early elections, while 79% believe Junts should back a motion from the PP.
PP and Vox thus start from electorates that overwhelmingly want to end the legislature early and see with good eyes that Junts contribute to doing so. Junts voters are practically in the opposite position: 59.1% want Sánchez to exhaust his term and 93% reject backing the motion.
“The Junts electorate is practically in the opposite position: 59.1% want Sánchez to exhaust the term and 93% reject backing the motion”
The PP can present an initiative to force other parties to take a stance, use the debate to press Sánchez about the fragility of his majority, or attempt to negotiate directly with Junts. But none of these strategies resolves the main question by itself: what can it offer to a party whose voters reject so broadly the idea of facilitating a popular alternative. Until there is an answer to that question, the 7% will continue to mark an important limit.
Rejecting the motion does not guarantee stability for Sánchez
The result does not mean that the PSOE can take for granted its relationship with Carles Puigdemont’s party. That 93% of Junts voters reject backing a PP motion does not imply their deputies are obliged to sustain the socialist government.
Junts can continue voting against Government initiatives, harden their conditions or withdraw support without any of those actions necessarily leading to an alternative majority.
For Sánchez, that means parliamentary dependence on Junts remains. For Feijóo, that the opposition of the independence party to the Government does not automatically translate into support for the PP. And for Junts, keeping open their ability to negotiate with both sides remains an important part of their strength in Congress.
The territorial issue also weighs in a move that might look purely parliamentary. If Junts had to decide whether to support a no-confidence motion, it would not be deciding only on Sánchez’s continuity, but also on its relationship with a potential PP-led alternative.
The data show that their voters clearly distinguish both things: almost three in ten want early elections, but only 7% want Junts to use its votes to back a no-confidence motion by the PP.
The pan-European polling firm Cluster17 has established itself as one of the most accurate in Spain. Its survey for the 2023 general elections was the second most precise in votes and the third in seats, according to Electomanía. In 2024, with the poll published in Agenda Pública, it achieved the most precise estimate of the Catalan elections and, also with this outlet, the third most accurate in the overall ranking of seats and votes in the European elections.
For a sample of this size, the conventional 95% precision margin places the maximum at ±2.4 percentage points.
