After the Andalusian elections, which closed a cycle of four consecutive elections, two early elections and two within the scheduled calendar, speculation has begun about whether on May 23 of next year, alongside local elections in more than 9,000 municipalities and regional elections in Asturias, Cantabria, La Rioja, Navarra, Castilla-La Mancha, the Community of Madrid, the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, the Region of Murcia, Ceuta and Melilla, there would also be two more ballots: one for the Congress and one for the Senate.
The analysis of the results from the recently held elections in Extremadura, Aragon, Castile and León, and Andalusia should serve as an incentive for Pedro Sánchez not to call, under any circumstances, a super Sunday.
Let us look at the reasons. In Extremadura, during the atypical July 2023 general elections, Sánchez won by a narrow margin of a little over one point, and two years later, in the regional elections, his candidate was defeated by a staggering seventeen points.
In Aragon, the gap between the PP and the PSOE between general and regional elections doubled, going from a five-point lead for the PP in July 2023 to ten points in this 2026 regional vote.
In Andalusia, the data are even worse for the socialists, since, if in summer 2023 they were defeated by a mere three points, now the distance between the PP and the PSOE has multiplied sixfold, reaching nineteen points. Only in Castile and León has the PSOE reduced its margin with the PP, going from an eight-point loss to a five-point defeat.
Consequently, Sánchez has no incentive whatsoever to put himself to the test alongside his candidates for mayor and regional president, but even less motivation if he applies his own logic that it does not matter who wins, what really matters is the overall result of the blocs. On one side, the right-wing parties of the PP and Vox, and on the other, the PSOE, Sumar, and the independentist or nationalist parties. There Sánchez performs even worse.
“With these data, it is political suicide for Pedro Sánchez to call elections in May of the coming year”
In Andalusia, in the 2023 general elections, the distance between the PP and Vox with the PSOE and Sumar was seven points in favor of the right; in the regional elections, the gap doubled to fourteen points. In Aragon it went from eight points in favor of the right to fourteen. In Extremadura, from five to, again, fourteen, and in Castile and León, from fourteen to twenty-two. With these data in hand, it is political suicide for Pedro Sánchez to call elections in May of the coming year. It is evident that first he will lead his local and regional candidates to the slaughter and will delay the call of his elections as long as possible.
Ferraz can take comfort that the PP has not achieved an absolute majority in any of the four communities that have gone to the polls in recent months, but that circumstance, which also causes unease in Genoa, does not avoid a hard reality: the PSOE, in all the communities except Castile and León — thanks to the Soria effect, the least populated province in Spain and, therefore, the least relevant in terms of seats — is retreating. And it does so in a particularly alarming way in the south, where for decades it held an impregnable stronghold.
In 2023, Sánchez achieved victory because he repeated Felipe González’s playbook from 1993, when he stirred up the ghosts of the past and of the right. In the 2027 elections, the Prime Minister cannot repeat the same gambit. Four years later, the PP and Vox have governed in countless provincial capitals, have signed pacts, and none of the doomsday scenarios predicted by Sánchez has materialized.
The electoral cycle closes with a rising right-wing bloc because the PP holds or climbs and Vox rises, while on the left, the PSOE sinks, Sumar and IU also, and only those left-wing parties that move away from Sánchez’s approach advance, such as Adelante Andalucía, La Chunta, or UPL, which are precisely the formations that most trouble Sánchez.
“Extremadura, Aragon, Castile and León and Andalusia, with their thirteen million inhabitants, are much more than a poll for Sánchez and his peripheral partners”
Extremadura, Aragon, Castile and León and Andalusia, with their thirteen million inhabitants, are much more than a poll for Sánchez and his peripheral partners. For their part, for Feijóo and for Abascal, they are the confirmation that in 2027 only a miracle can keep Sánchez in the Moncloa and, at the same time, that change will only arrive if the PP and Vox pact.
In Italy, that pact has already happened. We Spaniards are not so different.
