Redondo: PSOE could lead if Vox surges to 80 seats

Redondo places PSOE close to PP with Vox surging to 80 seats

In the hypothetical scenario of a snap election, the thesis defended by former Moncloa strategy chief Iván Redondo goes against the grain: PSOE could end up as the country's leading force even without options to renew its government. The engine behind that result would not be a shift of the electorate to the left. It would be Vox. "Vox is very strong and the trend we are seeing could take it up to 80 seats," he argues. From that paradox comes everything else.

The picture he handles is this: PP around 130 seats and PSOE around 120. That is, the Socialists would be about ten seats behind the Popular Party, but below the 121 deputies they won in 2023. Redondo's summary: PSOE would not renew its government, but would obtain a better result than in the last general election.

What does Iván Redondo say about Vox and PSOE?

The key lies in the transfer of votes from PP to Vox. If that movement consolidates, Santiago Abascal's party grows at the expense of the Popular Party and the distance between the two leading forces narrows to the point where the order could be reversed. Mind the nuance: leading force is not synonymous with governing. With PP and Vox adding up as a bloc, the right-wing majority would still stand.

The most repeated calculation in the conversation is simple: 130 + 80 = 210. The same seats as other times, but with the distribution changed. Therein lies the detail that Redondo is interested in highlighting and that his critics find irrelevant: if PSOE holds and Vox grows, the map is scrambled without changing who rules.

Can PSOE be the leading force without governing?

Yes, and that is the crux of the matter. Winning by seats and remaining in opposition is not an exotic hypothesis: it is parliamentary arithmetic. The bloc that sustains a government is not the one that wins, but the one that adds up. Redondo says it bluntly when ruling out that the Socialists can renew the Executive, and there he coincides with those who look at the numbers above party labels.

The discrepancy appears with the diagnosis. Some argue that PSOE can only come first by losing seats, meaning the merit would be due to others' wear and tear and not its own rise. Against this weighs an elementary argument: in 2023 it already obtained 121 deputies, and the described scenario leaves it below that.

The doubt no one resolves: how many votes cross from PP to Vox

The whole edifice rests on a magnitude that is not measured. The trend that would take Vox to 80 seats is a projection, not a count. And on its size depends whether PSOE is the leading force or third from the bottom. The full calculation, broken down province by province, is where the scenario holds or falls. That is the fine part of the matter.

There are more readings. Part of the interested public sees Vox's seat count as a real lever for change and not as a problem, with the threshold of 50 as a simple replacement and 70 as the point where things get interesting. Others deny the entire scenario. And, as in any electoral conversation, the suspicion of vote-count manipulation looms: an accusation without any proof that should be left where it belongs, in the realm of whimsy.

The analysis gets stuck right here: if PSOE wins the election and cannot govern, what exactly has it won?