Women's tactical vote for Spain's PSOE to keep the right out of power

Women's tactical vote for the PSOE to keep the right out of power

A woman opens TikTok, sees a video from a creator telling her to vote for Spain's PSOE even if she is not convinced, and closes the app feeling that her ballot is a firewall. That scene, described by a participant as something that keeps appearing in the feed, is the starting point of a discussion that opens with an uncomfortable claim: there is a female electorate that would vote socialist not out of conviction, but to prevent the hard right from taking power. The argument of tactical voting, the kind sold as pragmatic, becomes the axis of the whole debate.

What lies behind women's tactical vote

The thesis circulating is that women lean somewhat more to the left than men, and that this bias translates into support for the PSOE that does not always respond to a programme, but to a defensive calculation. Antiestéticar of the far right works as electoral glue. Some sum it up wryly: voting for the PSOE to keep the far right out is the new tactical vote, the one demanded on social media with the same insistence as a like.

The problem is that this narrative clashes with the perception of part of the electorate that does not identify with the "far-right" label applied to the conventional right. It sounds like the name of a dishwasher advert, someone even says, to stress that the hyperbolic label switches more people off than it switches on. The discussion drifts towards whether antiestéticar is a weighty argument or a way of avoiding talking about governance.

Security, daughters and other reasons that don't make the headlines

The conversation shifts to less comfortable ground: security. Some argue that women with young daughters prioritise public order over any ideology, and that this factor may weigh more than slogan feminism. The claim is not backed by polls, but by an intuition running through the debate: security comes before any ideology when you have something to protect.

Added to this is the accusation, made without evidence, that the PSOE has created a pool of female votes ranging from women in their forties to those aged one hundred and five, crossed with pensioners who voted socialist in the González era, civil servants of every level and immigrants from certain backgrounds. It is a broad-brush taxonomy, but it explains how the party is perceived: as a recruitment machine rather than a project.

Feminism as DNA and the wearing-out of the narrative

Feminism appears as a hallmark of socialism, to the point that it is said to be in its DNA. That association, which some see as a virtue, others see as the symptom of a party that has replaced its economic programme with a cultural banner. The discussion gets tangled up with references to migration management and specific cases used as ammunition, with no one providing verifiable figures.

What is striking is that, despite everything, the underlying conclusion is not that the PSOE is going to lose. Some believe it could easily win again, not because of the strength of its electorate, but because of the wear-and-tear of those presenting themselves as the alternative. Tactical voting, in the end, is not an addition of enthusiasms: it is a subtraction of antiestéticars.

The most disconcerting fact is none of the above, but the very mechanics of the debate: a conversation about women who vote to avoid something, in which women appear as the object of the calculation and not as subjects who decide. There, perhaps, lies the key that no one quite manages to look at.