The regularization pushed forward by the Government of Spain has brought migration policy back to the center of parliamentary debate. Listening to the arguments of the different groups, two apparently irreconcilable positions emerge. On one hand, left-wing forces articulate around an open-ended migration model, which envisions the arrival of immigrant populations both as a beneficial asset for the economy and as a response to demographic aging. On the other hand, the conservative forces frame the migration issue in terms of conflict, appealing to the risk of erosion of national identity. The ideological axis seems to structure the positions of both sides, and the discourses reflect a polarization that could hinder the construction of an effective migration policy.
But, to what extent do these stances of political representatives reflect the visions of the citizenry? From the Elitpolar project we have conducted two surveys that allow comparing the attitudes of parliamentary elites and the general public across a wide range of issues in Spanish political life. Since both surveys are calibrated and share practically the same questionnaire, the results are directly comparable and can be extrapolated to the current context of Spain in 2026. To this end, this article presents a comparative analysis based on the ideology of the responses of politicians and citizens to three questions about immigration.
The first issue we focus on is the level of agreement with the phrase “immigrants should be asked to adapt to Spanish customs”. This point is central, especially in the identity debate proposed by conservative elements. Theories such as the great replacement or the dissolution of Spanish identity are part of the daily discourse in several media outlets and parties. If we look at the aggregated data, both citizens and politicians show a tendency toward immigrants adapting to Spanish customs, though the citizens do so more: 65% agree or strongly agree among the citizenry, versus 52% among the representatives. A minority disagree with this statement: 9% of citizens and 23% of parliamentarians. However, nuances emerge when we account for ideology in both groups.
On the right end of the spectrum, the coherence between elites and the citizenry is notable. Right-wing politicians (89%) and their voters (83%) show aligned positions regarding the obligation of immigrants to assimilate Spanish culture, as does the center-right (82% and 77%). However, it is striking when we look at the other side of the axis. Among left-leaning citizens, almost half (49%) agree with cultural adaptation, but among left-wing politicians that percentage collapses to 11%. The gap in the center-left is equally striking. Citizens show 60% agreement versus a scant 23.5% among their representatives. Thus, in general, while among conservative segments there is agreement between citizenry and representatives, left-wing citizenry shows a much stronger tendency toward adaptation of immigrants than the representatives of the same ideological group.
“While among conservative segments there is agreement between citizenry and representatives, left-wing citizenry shows a much stronger tendency toward adaptation of immigrants than the representatives of their same ideological group”
The second issue we address is the degree of agreement with the phrase “immigrants are good for the Spanish economy”. This issue is particularly thorny for the Spanish left. Much of the arguments they advance in support of immigration rely on the benefits that immigrants bring to the Spanish economy, whether through stimulating economic activity, contributions to state coffers, or Social Security contributions. In this issue, we find a gap between the perceptions of the two groups: while politicians show a high degree of agreement with the assessment of immigrants’ contribution to the economy (81%), the citizenry shows a much lower level of agreement (49%). Among those who are opposed to this perception, there are 4% among representatives and 17% among citizens. As in the previous case, there are differences when considering ideology, as shown below.
From this graph, at least two readings emerge. The first: both representatives and the citizenry perceive that immigration is beneficial to the economy based on ideology. In this case, it is notable that among representatives from both the left and the center-left there is no one who disagrees with the statement. It is also striking that even politicians located further to the right end of the ideological spectrum show agreement with the benefit immigrants bring, at 63%. The contrast, however, comes with the second scenario. Across all ideological groups, citizens show more skeptical positions about the economic benefit attributed to immigrants, with agreement on this statement dropping by 25 to 40 percentage points across all ideological strata.
Finally, the third issue we capture in this article is the degree of agreement with the phrase “we should limit the number of refugees arriving in Spain”. This issue is not technically about immigration; it should be recalled that refugee status is linked to human rights and that only under certain circumstances (persecution in the country of origin due to race, religion, or membership in a social group) is that status accessed. However, we must also bear in mind that the refugee issue has often been intertwined with immigration, so it has become a relevant topic for analysis. In general terms, we again find a gap between citizens and representatives: 54% of citizens are in favor of limiting refugees, versus almost a third of representatives (32%). If we move to the opposite end, almost half of politicians oppose the limitation of refugees (47%) compared with a scant 17% among the citizenry. By ideology and group, the distribution would be as follows.
Across the ideological spectrum, citizens show greater agreement with limiting the number of refugees hosted by Spain than their own representatives. But the gap is considerably larger on the left. Among left-wing citizens, support stands at 31%, while among representatives it is 4%. Something similar, though less extreme, occurs in the center-left, with about half of citizens agreeing with the limit (45%) and only a tenth among their representatives (8%). The pattern reverses on the right, center-right, and center. Here, it is the citizens who show greater agreement with the measure than their elites, although the direction is the same: both sides say yes to the limit, but citizens express it more strongly.
“Across the ideological spectrum, citizens show greater agreement with limiting the number of refugees hosted by Spain than their own representatives”
Thus, politicians and the Spanish citizenry have some differences in perceptions regarding immigration-related issues. In general, the greatest gap between the two groups lies in the assessment of the economic benefit that immigrants bring to the Spanish economy. Both in aggregated terms and when broken down by ideology, politicians show much more favorable positions toward the role newcomers play in the economy, even among those who are more restrictive toward immigration. However, the citizenry is far more skeptical and only those who sit further to the left of the ideological spectrum predominantly perceive immigrants as beneficial, though far from the representatives of their own ideological group.
The greatest differences within ideological blocks are found in the identity issue and refugee limits. Citizens and politicians on the right and the center-right align very closely in their perceptions of these two matters, but a chasm separates those on the left and center-left. While citizens show a greater willingness to limit the number of refugees and mostly agree with the duty of immigrants to adapt to Spanish customs, left-wing and center-left representatives stand at the opposite end, appearing completely opposed to both issues. There is, therefore, a structural gap between the left and center-left political elite and their potential voters. Perhaps, from a political accountability standpoint, the left-leaning representatives think about the need to persuade their potential electorate of the necessity of an inclusive migration policy, even at the risk of losing votes.
“There is a structural gap between the left and center-left political elite and their potential voters”
In short, our results show a considerable gap between parliamentary elites and the citizenry in their attitudes toward immigration, which manifests both in the instrumental assessment of it and in expectations of cultural integration. This is not a surprising result at a comparative level. Various studies show that political and socio-economic elites in advanced democracies tend to maintain more cosmopolitan and open positions toward immigration than the citizenry, especially in Western Europe, where immigration has become one of the main axes of differentiation between representatives and the represented. For example, the work of Strijbis, Teney and Helbling (2019) shows that elites are systematically more favorable toward immigration than the citizenry in different national contexts, and, to explain that gap, they use a cultural argument rooted in cosmopolitanism: elites would have acquired cultural capital associated with similar educational trajectories, international networks, and shared norms of openness and mobility that would yield relatively homogeneous positions among those elites on immigration and other issues.
From this perspective, it seems that Spain is not an exception and that the existence of a sustained gap between elites and citizenry on migration matters could help explain, at least partially, the rise of far-right parties in various European countries, to the extent that these actors have managed to mobilize electorally perceptions of cultural distance and lack of representation between those in power and the governed.
