Even though the government is going through the darkest weeks of the legislature, the various corruption and institutional scandals surrounding Pedro Sánchez have had less effect than one might expect. According to the latest SocioMétrica barometer from EL ESPAÑOL, the PSOE would today obtain the 28.3% of the votes and 120 seats.
The forecasts are not very far from the result obtained during the last legislative elections on June 23, where the Socialists won 121 seats and 31.68% of the votes. This resistance is due to the fact that there are different layers of the electorate in which the socialists continue to have a very strong impact and who support the party despite everything.
According to the SocioMétrica study, these are the womenTHE unemployedpeople with less studies and the inhabitants of rural municipalities those who constitute a lifeline for Sánchez, because they prefer the PSOE to the 28.3% of average votes that Spanish citizenship would give him.
It should be added to this that the PSOE also attracts the votes of other left-wing groups in times of depression, such as Sumar or Podemos.
All this means that, despite the fact that his wife, Begoña Gómez, his ex right hand in the match, Jose Luis Abalosand even his attorney general, Álvaro Garcia Ortizare surrounded by justice, the PSOE could remain in relatively good health in the face of new elections.
Fall of Sumar and Podemos
One of the key factors in understanding this situation lies in the votes that the Socialist Party would be able to attract from other parties. The limited capacity of Podemos and Sumar to capitalize on political gains and the radicalization of Pedro Sánchez’s discourse lead to a transfer of votes to the PSOE formations located to its left.
According to the SocioMétrica survey, Sumar would obtain today 6.6% of the votes and 10 seats, very far from the 12.3% and 31 seats that he obtained on 23-J. Even though Podemos was part of Yolanda Díaz’s coalition in the last legislative elections, it won five seats at the time and could not make a strong comeback again, remaining with three deputies.
Based on the vote transfer matrix, even though the PSOE enjoys relatively low loyalty (68.8% of those who voted for the Socialists on 23-J would do so again), Sánchez would be the option preferred by 12.8% of those who voted. for Sumar in the general elections.
In addition, it would obtain 1.6% of those who voted for regionalist parties and 10.7% of those who abstained. This is probably because his recent policy manages to convince undecided parties like the BNG or the ERC. Or because fear of the far right or the feeling that there could be a hunt for him can mobilize a socialist electorate who stayed at home on 23-J.
These questions would not only help the PSOE reduce some of the percentage of traditional socialist votes that Sánchez would lose in new elections, but would also help tip swing seats in some provinces in his favor. For this reason, even if the SocioMétrica barometer gives the PSOE almost four percentage points below the 23-J, it ultimately only loses one seat compared to the legislative elections, going from 121 to 120.
Women and young people
Beyond political variables and taking into account purely socio-economic variables, women and youth continue to be a lifeline for Sánchez. If the PP fails to become more attractive to these two very broad sectors of society, Sánchez will continue to have a float that protects him from a possible fall.
According to the post-electoral barometer of the Center for Sociological Research (CIS) after 23-J, The PSOE was the party with the most votes among women and among young people between 18 and 24 years old.as well as among older people between 25 and 34 years old. In all these segments of the population, it far exceeded the PP.
According to the SocioMétrica survey, the PSOE would no longer be the preferred party of women, but the socialists would still have a driving force that drives them. The survey reveals that 29% of Spanish women would vote for the PSOE, exceeding the percentage of male voters.
That’s almost a percentage point more than the 28% of votes he would get in Spain as a whole. In addition, left-wing parties have a greater female voteThe fall of Podemos and Sumar could therefore strengthen the PSOE on this front.
Something similar happens with young people. The PSOE exceeds, according to the survey, the PP in the age group of 18 to 35 years. The Socialists would obtain the vote of 29.2% of this sector, while the Popular would be slightly below, at 27.7%.
The same thing happens with the rest of the left: they enjoy more support among young people. However, there might be a gap here for the Socialists, as parties like Vox and Se Acabó la Fiesta also have a relatively young voter profile. Although this may have a negative impact on the PSOE, it does not necessarily have to benefit the PP, since socialist votes in this age group can be distributed among other parties.
Faced with this scenario, it is essential for the PP, if it wants to come back, that it succeeds part of the social turning point that Feijóo is attempting with measures such as the conciliation law and the housing plan, as already published by EL ESPAÑOL.
Unemployed and low education
Although the boost that the PSOE obtains among women and young people is slight compared to the national average, in the employment situation variable it manages to stand out more. The PSOE is the party with the most votes among the unemployed. In Spain, 32.4% of unemployed people, or almost one in three, would vote for the PSOE in a general election. For the PP, it is only 28.8%.
This represents, for the PSOE, an increase of four points compared to the national average. Moreover, it continues to be strong among workers in general, even if it is starting to weaken among retirees, a sector which traditionally supported it quite well. If this investigation helps us understand why he maintains his soil, it also points out the places where he no longer has as much strength.
The PSOE It is also much higher than the 28.3% voting intention among the least educated people.. It would receive the vote of 35.3% of citizens with primary education and 31.1% of those with secondary education, vocational training or baccalaureate.
These are sectors in which social discourse is traditionally easier to penetrate, in which the PSOE manages more easily than the PP. Furthermore, despite parliamentary weakness, the government can continue to provide scholarships and subsidies to these segments of the population.
rural vote
Finally, the PSOE also continues to have the capacity to concentrate a notable electoral force in small municipalities to win the rural vote. According to the survey, 29.5% of Spanish citizens who do not live in a provincial capital vote for the PSOE, also above the threshold of 28.3%.
Given the size of the municipality, the PSOE is the party having obtained the most votes in municipalities of 10,000 to 50,000 inhabitants. 31.7% of the inhabitants of these cities would choose the socialist vote today. It would also be the second most voted party (30.2%) in municipalities with less than 10,000 inhabitants, behind the PP.
According to the National Statistics Institute (with data updated in 2021), more than 19.3 million Spaniards live in municipalities with less than 50,000 inhabitants. Although not everyone has the right to vote, They represent an older population and around a fifth of the total populationtherefore having a good impact on this sector of the population is important electoral capital.
Having a good electoral base in the least populated areas is also a key issue. It is in the least populated provinces that it is most cheap take a seat.
If the PSOE defends itself in these small municipalities, it can maintain beneficial electoral terrain. If, moreover, in large cities he managed to conquer seats that would have belonged to Podemos, Sumar or the regionalists, Pedro Sánchez would considerably expand his electoral terrain.
Technical sheet
The study was carried out by the company SocioMétrica between October 16 and 18, 2024 through 2,240 random interviews extracted from its own panel of n=10,000 individuals representative of all Spanish socio-demographic segments.
The final results were finely adjusted using a weighting variable that takes into account gender, age, province and electoral memory during the last three elections.
Maximum error: 3% (the average sociometric difference of the vote in generation 23 was 1.1% and in the EU24 0.8%). No confidence level is applicable as this is non-probability sampling.
Study director: Gonzalo Adán. Doctor in political psychology and professor of psychometrics and social research techniques. SocioMétrica is a member of Insights + Analytics Spain.
