PP and Vox on course for a Spanish majority

The Partido Popular would win 137 of the 350 seats in the Congreso if Spain voted on today's polls, and with Vox on 64 the two parties would hold 201, well past the 176 needed for a majority. In our 2,000 simulated elections the PP and Vox reach 176 together in practically every run. The PSOE is projected at 108 seats, 13 fewer than it won in 2023.

The election on 29 November came early. On 2 October the Congreso rejected the government's two housing decrees, on evictions and on indefinite rental contracts, with the PP, Vox and Junts voting against; the second fell by 184 votes to 166. Pedro Sánchez announced the dissolution of the Cortes on 5 October. Atalayar reported that the defeat left the government with no room to pass next year's budget. Wikipedia's page on the election lists housing, corruption investigations involving the Socialists, the migrant crisis in Ceuta and the cost of living among the issues. The official campaign runs from 13 to 27 November, and polls may not be published after 23 November.

Where the parties stand

Our average counts the latest poll from each pollster in the past 30 days once. It has the PP on 32.3%, the PSOE on 26.4%, Vox on 18.8%, Sumar on 6.2% and Podemos on 3.2%. The PP leads by 6.0 points. Against the 2023 result the PP is 0.7 points lower and the PSOE 5.3 points lower. Twelve polls came out in the past week, and the PP's average slipped 0.6 points over that time, a move within the normal scatter between polls.

The largest change of this parliament is Vox. In March 2024 our average had it on 10.4% and 22 seats. It passed 15% in the summer of 2025 and stands at 18.8% now, 6.4 points above its 2023 result and 1.2 points higher than in July. On these figures it would almost double its seats, from 33 to 64, with a range of 57 to 76 in 80% of our simulations. GESOP's poll for Prensa Ibérica, published on 12 October, had Vox on 18.9%, its highest GESOP reading of the parliament, The Spanish Eye reported. Santiago Abascal has told voters not to trust polls showing a right-wing majority and said the PP was behaving as if the election were already won, Brussels Signal reported.

The left of the PSOE is split. Sumar on 6.2% and Podemos on 3.2% together poll 9.4%, against the 12.3% Sumar won as one list in 2023. Standing apart, our seat model gives Sumar 8 seats and Podemos 2; the same votes on one list would win 19. Sumar's member parties plan to launch a new platform, the Frente Amplio, and name its candidate on 17 October, according to Wikipedia. Podemos is running with Irene Montero at the top of its list.

The parties that decide investitures

After the 2023 election Sánchez was invested with the votes of the PSOE, Sumar, ERC, Junts, EH Bildu, the PNV, the BNG and Coalición Canaria. On today's projection those parties have 148 seats between them, 28 short of a majority, and they reach 176 in under 1% of our simulations. ERC is projected at 8 seats, Junts and EH Bildu at 7 each, the PNV at 5, the BNG at 2, and Coalición Canaria and UPN at 1 each.

For Alberto Núñez Feijóo the regional parties offer little without Vox. The PP with UPN, Coalición Canaria, Junts and the PNV would have 151 seats on our figures. At a second investiture vote a candidate needs only more yes votes than no, so abstentions count, but the plainest route to 176 runs through Vox. Abascal has given no detail of what Vox would ask in return, according to Brussels Signal. The only other pair of parties with a majority on our projection is the PP and the PSOE, on 245.

If the polls are wrong

Spanish polls have missed before, and not always the same way. Our what-if page replays each past general election's final-poll error on today's average. A miss like 2004's, when the final polls overstated the PP by 4.8 points and understated the PSOE by 5.2, would make the PSOE the largest party on 135 seats with the PP on 111. That election came three days after the Madrid train bombings. Even then the PP and Vox would have 180. A miss like 2016's would lift the PP to 146. Across all eight replays the PP and Vox never fall below 180 seats, and the 2023 investiture parties never rise above 169.

Spain's final polls have missed each main party, those with 5% of the vote or more, by 2.1 points on average at the nine general elections since 2000, and the direction has changed from one election to the next. Tested on the eight elections since 2004, correcting for past misses would have made the forecast worse at five of them, so our projection takes the polls as published.

The campaign adds its own uncertainty. Our election-day page finds that polls this far out have missed each party by about 1.6 points by polling day. Allowing for that, the PP's 80% range widens to 118 to 153 seats, and the PP and Vox reach a majority in 98% of simulations. For the PSOE to finish first, 3.5 points would have to move to it from the PP.

The seats to watch

The national picture is clear; the provincial one less so. In 13 provinces the party next in line for the last seat is less than a point short. In Girona the PP is 0.05 points from taking a seat, in La Rioja the PSOE is 0.06 points short and in Asturias Vox needs 0.13 points more. Seats like these will decide whether Vox ends nearer 60 or 70, and with it how much the PP needs Vox.

One pollster sees a different race. The CIS, the public research centre, had the PSOE ahead by 31.0% to 25.5% in its September barómetro. That poll is older than the 30-day window of our average. We look at the CIS's record, and at how the seat law turns votes into seats, in a separate piece.