GESOP poll: VOX rises to 61 seats, forcing Feijóo to seek alliance

The poll showing PP and PSOE declining while VOX rises to 61 seats

The arithmetic for forming a government has broken down again. A GESOP poll released by Electomanía places the PP at 30.5% of the vote with 131 to 135 seats, the PSOE at 27% with 112-116, and VOX at 16% with up to 61 MPs. In plain terms: whoever wins must strike a deal, and the PP candidate needs strong support from VOX to reach La Moncloa. The survey comes with a PollCheck score of 5.5 out of 10.

According to a calculation comparing the poll with 2023 results, the two major parties lose seats simultaneously, VOX gains between 24 and 28, and Sumar and Podemos together lose nearly thirty seats. This is the earthquake.

What the GESOP poll says exactly

The numbers, without adjectives:

• PP: 30.5% and 131-135 seats
• PSOE: 27% and 112-116 seats
• VOX: 16% and 57-61 seats
• Sumar: 7.5% and 12-14 seats; Podemos: 3.8% and 4 seats
• SALF: 2%; ERC: 1.7% and 7 seats; Junts: 1.2% and 4-5 seats

The picture has an immediate reading: the right-wing bloc grows, but not enough to govern alone. Feijóo would need a rising VOX to return to La Moncloa.

Where the seats VOX gains come from

According to one interpretation of the poll, VOX is no longer just the party of borrowed votes but starts collecting seats from all blocs. From the collapse of Sumar and Podemos, the flight from the PSOE, the wear and tear of the PP, and the trickle from Junts. "It collects all the lost seats," summarizes this reading, which stresses its cross-cutting nature and that its vote comes "from the center, from separatism, and from workers."

The Podemos figure stings: four seats and 3.8%. And some go further, arguing that SALF, with its 2%, will end up ahead at the polls. The survey itself does not back this up.

Why do both PP and PSOE fall simultaneously?

Because the protest vote is going to a third party. The PP loses momentum despite the government dragging wear, and a recurring argument appears: Feijóo's campaign subtracts more than it adds. Some calculate that the popular candidate loses about twenty seats just with his presentation.

In the PSOE, the problem is symmetrical and older. The space to the left of the socialists has split in two, Sumar and Podemos, and neither fills the gap. When two parties compete for the same electorate, the one that loses is not one, it is both.

The vote that does not move

There is a bloc that does not appear in any table and explains half the poll: the electorate that does not change its ballot no matter what. This is what sustains the PSOE below its historical floor and keeps the PP at 30% when its opposition work leaves doubts even among its own.

The consequence is that increases and decreases almost always occur in the same segment: the center voter who marks one box or another, and the abstentionist who decides to stay home. With this map, a couple of percentage points of voting intention equal about twenty seats. And that is where VOX is catching fish.

No absolute majority: the scenario of deals no one wants

No party reaches an absolute majority. The hypothesis gaining ground is that of a weak government: executives with sporadic support, desperate agreements, and prorogued budgets. The precedent cited is not a coalition, but Rajoy's second term sustained by Ciudadanos. Governments that hold on because no one wants elections, not because anyone wants to govern.

There lies the knot. A PP that promised not to depend on VOX and a VOX that no longer needs to win anything because, according to one of the most repeated theses, it is enough to have Madrid as a base. Abascal's party rises in polls while its electorate celebrates that it does not need to govern to condition.

The shadow of polls: from skepticism to election rigging claims

The oldest reflex of Spanish politics appears: distrusting the poll when you do not like it. The list of complaints is long. That VOX was going to brush absolute majority and did not. That polls inflate the right to mobilize older voters. That what matters is not who votes, but who counts. And, in the most extreme version, that the result of the last general elections was manipulated.

None of this has evidentiary backing. Counting is done with representatives of all parties present, and theories about election rigging circulate without a single piece of proof to support them. That a poll fails does not imply an election is rigged: it implies that a poll has failed. Less epic, but that is what there is.

And the surprising figure: PP and PSOE together hold between 243 and 251 seats. Plenty of absolute majority. The problem was never the arithmetic. It never has been.