Sánchez and the six-million-vote floor attributed to the PSOE

Sánchez hangs on: calculating the PSOE’s electoral floor

Is Pedro Sánchez finished? The conclusion that prevails in the dominant analysis these days is that he is not, and that whoever signs his political death certificate every quarter has been getting it wrong for years. The argument is not one of faith: it is electoral arithmetic, plus an opposition that has yet to capitalize on the wear and tear. On the table are two ideas repeated in the debate: that the PSOE recorded its worst historic result in the last general election —and still governs— and that its floor does not fall below 6 million votes.

That double reading frames everything else. If the party hit bottom, according to that account, and stayed in La Moncloa, the question stops being how far it can fall and becomes how much it can withstand. And the answer that keeps coming up has less to do with the epic of the narrative than with the structure of public spending, the divide between PP and VOX, and the arithmetic of parliamentary support.

The PSOE’s floor: six million votes and postal voting

The figure is repeated like a mantra: whatever happens, the PSOE does not fall below six million votes. It is the estimate that best sums up the optimism of some and the fatalism of others. In the last general election, as argued in the thread, the party recorded the worst result in its history and still ended up governing thanks to agreements with a handful of formations, a majority described as fragile. That is the starting point described.

From there, everyone fills in the rest. Part of the analysis attributes the result to postal voting, which multiplied in 2023 —and which some link, without any proof, to a fix—. Another focuses on an electorate that is very stable by age and on the pool of people who, according to that reading, vote under the influence of subsidies and public employment. The thesis is not provable, but it has become common sense for an entire side of the debate.

Why doesn’t corruption cost the PSOE?

Here is the core of the matter. Some argue that the reason is purely material: part of the electorate depends on subsidies, public employment or contracts awarded by the administrations, and voting against whoever signs the payroll is voting against oneself. It is an unflattering portrait of the link between public spending and voting, and there is no way to quantify it rigorously. But it explains, according to that reading, why the indictments pile up without moving the polls.

The reading adds other ingredients: a bloc of very loyal older voters; a left that, without the PSOE, is left without relevant representation; and nationalist partners whose support sustains the Government. On paper, it is a broader majority than it seems. In practice, it is a majority that depends on no one moving.

An opposition that fails to profit from the wear and tear

The second pillar of the argument is the opposition. One current considers it irrelevant as an alternative: the PP, it is said, does not act as a real counterpower and acts conditioned by the same interests it claims to fight. The other half of the diagnosis assigns blame in the opposite direction: VOX, a party to all the judicial cases peine against socialist officials, mobilized in the street and active in international forums, would be the only thing really damaging the Government’s image.

The regional map reinforces the sense of blockage. In Euskadi, the Basque Government is sustained by support that the analysis itself describes as precarious, and in the thread a no-confidence motion is ruled out. Some even recall that the lehendakari went up to the podium of the Conferencia de Presidentes while the president of the Comunidad de Madrid left the room. These are details that do not move a seat and that, nevertheless, feed the idea that no one is interested in precipitating a change.

Which court cases could hurt Sánchez?

Here the analysis becomes more specific. The Kitchen case trial is scheduled, according to the debate, for May 2026, and part of the thread hopes that material will emerge from it that splashes the PP. On other pieces —the actions of the Fiscalía General del Estado, the leaks attributed to the UCO, the cases affecting the president’s vvife— the expectation is limited judicial pogre, while the case affecting his brother is pointed to as the only one capable of hurting him. It bears repeating: these are ongoing investigations and no final conviction has been handed down.

The underlying calculation is different. For a judicial matter to cost votes, it has to arrive before the next date with the ballot box and it has to be understood by the average voter, not only by those who were already voting against. The hypothesis circulating is that corruption, in Spain, is a raw material that rarely decides a ballot.

The replacement thesis: Sánchez, Feijóo and the system

Not everyone who rules out the Government’s collapse does so out of admiration. There is a more cynical variant: Sánchez would not be a brilliant strategist but a useful piece that the system would have used because of his lack of scruples in exchange for assuming the electoral price. When he is exhausted, that thesis holds, the replacement is already prepared and his name is Feijóo. For that reading, the president’s personal wear and tear matters least: what matters is that the machinery keeps working.

It is the version that most discomforts both sides, because it denies victory to some and defeat to others. And yet it fits with the most uncomfortable fact of all: that we have been announcing an ending for years that never arrives.

When are the next general elections?

The horizon being considered is 2027, with the hypothesis of an early election some place in October. The key to the calculation is not whether Sánchez wears down, but whether the wear and tear arrives before his capacity to withstand it. Until now, he has won every call because everyone he faces is much worse, sums up the most cynical version. One can share it or not, but no one disputes that the strategy, if that was it, was invented decades ago.

With these ingredients, declaring the Government dead every Monday is not analysis: it is habit. The only poll that counts is not published, it opens on the day itself, and that one has been won, election after election, by the man many had written off.