The PP maintains a three-point advantage over the PSOE in the final stretch of the campaign

Six days before the European elections next Sunday, the second survey (the interviews were carried out between May 28 and 30) by the 40dB institute. for EL PAÍS and Cadena SER shows some variations compared to the first (held between May 10 and 15). The PP, with an estimated 33.2% of the vote, has lost three tenths since then, but would win the European Parliament elections in Spain with 23 MEPs, 10 more than it has now and three ahead of the PSOE. The Socialists remain at the same percentage (30.1%) and 20 seats, which is one less than they currently occupy in Strasbourg. The survey was carried out in the week in which Spain recognized the Palestinian State, Congress definitively approved the amnesty law and the right-wing offensive intensified to accuse the Government of alleged corruption.

Vox continues as the third force, but in just 18 days its vote estimate has dropped by almost two percentage points and one seat, the one it would take. The party is over, the new political brand headed by Luis Pérez, known as Alvise, an agitator in social networks that has more than 422,000 subscribers on its Telegram channel. Sumar, with an estimated 5.6% of the vote and three seats, would be ahead of Podemos, which accuses the split and would go beyond the 10.1% of the ballots that Unidas Podemos garnered in 2019 (before the abandonment of the politics of Pablo Iglesias and the Sumar configuration) to 4% and would be left with two MEPs. Junts (2.1%) remains practically the same as in the previous survey, with one seat, that is, two less than those it currently occupies in the European Parliament. Now Repúblicas (4.8%), which brings together ERC, BNG, EH Bildu and Ara Mès, retains three seats in Strasbourg. Ciudadanos, which in the 2019 elections was the third force, disappears with 1% and Coalition for a Solidarity Europe (CEUS), which brings together the PNV, Canary Coalition and El Pi-Proposta per les Illes Balears, drops slightly, but maintains a deputy. You can consult all the survey data at ELPAÍS.com.

The European elections are single-constituency elections, which makes it easier for small parties than other types of elections. Nor do appeals to the so-called “useful vote” work in the same way. The international political context has changed a lot compared to the May 2019 elections, prior to the Russian invasion and the war in Ukraine; to the officialization of Brexit —which increased the number of deputies for Spain—; to the war in Gaza, which broke out last October, and to the consolidation of the presence of the extreme right in several European countries. The Spanish political landscape has also changed notably: just a month before the last elections to the European Parliament, the PP, then led by Pablo Casado, had crashed in the general election polls with only 66 deputies in Congress, followed closely by close by Ciudadanos, with 57. This weakness of the first opposition party was transferred to Strasbourg, where the popular party obtained, in May 2019, 12 MEPs, four less than they had and eight below the PSOE. Since then, the PP has recovered electorally, changing its leader, but also its main competitor: from Ciudadanos – practically extinct today – to Vox, which burst into the European Parliament in 2019 with three seats and 1.38 million votes. 12.5% ​​of PP voters in 2019 would now opt for the far-right force. In exchange, the popular ones take the bulk (36%) of Ciudadanos’ loot.

Vox also launches its own competition in 2024. The party is over, Alvise Pérez’s group of voters would take, according to the 40dB. survey, 5.3% of the voters of Santiago Abascal’s party in 2019, which in turn gives up another 8.2 % of their support for the PP. In an interview with César Vidal, the candidate, a habitual propagator of hoaxes, explained that one of his intentions was to obtain the capacity to escape the “50 trials per year” that, according to him, are opened to him by “bored and motivated judges.” . He promises to start “a lobby massive” to “generate a national referendum for European negotiation.” “If these negotiations do not come to fruition, we would vote on whether we want to be in the European Union or not,” said the candidate for the continental Parliament. Despite the rise of ultra parties, on the ideological self-placement scale, with 0 being the extreme left and 10 being the extreme right, the population as a whole is situated at an average of 4.7, that is, slightly to the left.

The socialists, for their part, won the general elections prior to the 2019 European elections, and they did so again in November of that year, when the elections were repeated, but they lost those in July 2023. Sánchez, despite everything, managed be reinvested thanks to an agreement with eight political parties. In the regional and municipal elections of May last year, they lost territorial power, but they recovered in the recent Catalan elections – where the PSC was the leading force – and, according to the survey, today they retain 75.8% of the voters who supported them in the European elections of 2019 and would take the 7.6% that then took the Unidas Podemos ballot; 8% who supported CEUS and 5.9% who then opted for Junts.

In the space to the left of the PSOE, after the earthquake the aftershocks have not stopped: in May 2021 the co-founder of Podemos Pablo Iglesias left politics and designated Yolanda Díaz, Minister of Labor, as his successor, but last December it materialized the divorce between Podemos – which had previously broken with the current of Íñigo Errejón and the Anticapitalists – and Sumar, the platform with which Díaz tried to bring together the different brands to the left of the socialists. According to the survey, Podemos today retains 47.3% of UP’s support in the 2019 European elections and 29.7% of its electorate now opts for Sumar.

The independence movement has lost steam since the last European elections, as evidenced by the elections to the Generalitat on May 12. According to the 40dB. survey, 5.9% of the support for Puigdemont’s party in the 2019 European elections would now vote for the PSOE and the same percentage would opt for Ahora Repúblicas, the brand in which ERC is part and which has a greater voter loyalty (80%), although, according to the survey, it would give up 3.7% of its 2019 voters to the PSOE and another 3.3% to Junts.

The PNV has also since seen how EH Bildu threatened with the surprise, although the polls allowed them to revalidate the two-party agreement with the Basque socialists on April 21. According to the survey, the political brand of which it is a part in Europe, CEUS, would today give up 8% of its 2019 votes to the PSOE and 10.4% to Vox.

Degree of knowledge and assessment of candidates

As usual, the degree of knowledge of the European candidates is lower than that of the candidates in the general or regional elections, but the progress of the electoral campaign is noticeable. Irene Montero, head of Podemos’s European list and former Minister of Equality, continues to be the best known among the general population, with 90%; followed by the third vice president of the Government, Teresa Ribe
ra, a socialist candidate, who reaches 72.9% knowledge, almost seven percentage points more than in mid-May. The PP candidate, Dolors Montserrat, increases 8.5 percentage points in knowledge, but remains, for the moment, at 64.1%. Jorge Buxadé, from Vox, who repeats his candidacy, does not reach 54%. The least known are Estrella Galán, Sumar’s candidate, with barely 29.9% awareness among the general population—and little more: 35% among those who declare their intention to vote for the party—despite improving in almost five percentage points compared to the previous survey, and Jordi Cañas, from Ciudadanos, with 29.8% knowledge six days before the elections despite being the one that improved the most in that sense: 8.6 percentage points.

All their grades worsen since the previous wave of the 40dB survey. Buxadé, the worst valued, with a negative balance of 26% between those who have a good or very good opinion of it and those who have a bad or very bad opinion of it, falls 12.5 percentage points in just a few weeks; the second worst valued, Montero, also drops, but only one tenth, to a minus 25% final grade; The popular candidate drops 4.2 percentage points in rating and remains at minus 3.6; Cañas, from Ciudadanos, drops 5.5 points and only the socialist candidate Teresa Ribera approves, with a positive balance of +3.8, and Sumar’s Estrella Galán, who, despite dropping 9.8 points in rating in the last weeks, obtains a positive balance of +9.1.