Spain's 29N Election: PP Wins Provinces but Lacks Seats

This is how the 29N seat distribution will look

A calculation circulating in political circles paints an uncomfortable scenario for the right: the PP would be the leading force in Madrid, Galicia, Murcia, almost all of Andalusia, Cantabria, La Rioja, the Balearic Islands, Alicante, and Castellón, but the final seat distribution would not allow them to compensate for the disaster in Catalonia and the Basque Country. According to this analysis, the key lies in a highly mobilized left and a strong Vox, which breaks the traditional center-right strongholds in smaller provinces.

The starting point is a province-by-province projection placing the PSOE ahead in the number of MPs in historical PP strongholds. In Lugo and Ourense, each with four seats, a tie between the Popular Party and Socialists is taken for granted. In Palencia, Zamora, Segovia, Ávila, Cuenca, Guadalajara, or Soria, the PP would lose one of its two current MPs to Vox, although the seat does not change blocks. The result is a right that wins provinces but does not add up.

The most optimistic calculation for the PP assumes its advantage in Madrid and Andalusia will be pyrrhic. Winning by one or two seats in the Community of Madrid and in Andalusia is useless if in Catalonia the PSOE pulls twenty seats ahead and in the Basque Country another seven. The right has no place in Catalonia or the Basque Country, and that hole is too large to be covered with small seats in Segovia, Ávila, Cuenca, Palencia, Zamora, Burgos, Ciudad Real, Albacete, Cantabria, Ceuta, Melilla, or Murcia, as occurred in the previous general elections.

Why does the PP win provinces but not add seats?

The arithmetic is implacable. In the four-seat provinces that have traditionally been taken by the right, mobilized leftists and a strong Vox produce ties that did not exist before. In the three-seat provinces, the PP loses one of the two seats it currently holds to give it to Vox. The seat does not change blocks, but the distribution tightens. The system rewards vote concentration, and the right is fragmenting exactly where it was hardest to win.

Some argue that this scenario is unlikely. The maneuver on housing—the one pitting owners against tenants—will backfire on the PSOE, they argue. Thousands of owners who were socialist voters would have opted to support a noisy minority. And after eight years of government, there would be no more socialist-voting voters than in the previous general elections. The scenario depicted by the most pessimistic calculation for the right would be, directly, the epitaph as a country, according to this current.

The electoral fraud and other conspiracy theories

Accusations of electoral fraud are not lacking. Part of the analysis claims that the census is being manipulated with new additions: the grandchildren law, massive theft of votes from abstainers, selective purges of the census in unfavorable districts. These are unsubstantiated suspicions circulating in forums and should be treated as what they are: unfounded claims. The mobilized left, others say, has gone seven years without providing mortgage aid and now turns the measure into an electoral play.

The complete calculation, broken down province by province, yields a distribution that surprises by the tightness of the margins. In Madrid, the PP would obtain 14 MPs, the PSOE 11, the Broad Front 6, Vox 5, and Podemos 2. In Barcelona, the PSOE would pull 15, ERC 5, the Broad Front 5, Junts 3, the PP 3, and Vox 1. In Seville, the PSOE 5, the PP 3, Adelante 2, the Broad Front 1, and Vox 1. The sum of these blocks is what decides who governs.

What happens if the Broad Front surpasses Sumar?

The emergence of the Broad Front as a single brand to the left of the PSOE is one of the unknowns. Some doubt whether it will achieve better results than Sumar in the previous general elections. Others believe that if they all go together and the PSOE works its magic mobilizing socialist voters, the absolute majority of the PP and Vox narrows. Today, the PP and Vox have a wide absolute majority, but the entire campaign remains and the start has not been calm: attacks on the public pension system and campaign errors taken for granted.

The end of the quarter and the tax bill are the backdrop to this debate. Tens of thousands of euros in taxes for what is obtained in return make more than one person sick. There is no country that penalizes work more, it is repeated. With these differentials, internal migration should be massive. It remains marginal. No one fully understands why.