MADRID – The newspaper El Diario has published a poll showing that Spain’s traditionally two largest political parties continue to fall and the new left-wing party Sumar breaks through with 9.7% of the vote.
The socialists seem to be able to resist the entry of Sumar, the new project of Yolanda Díaz. Podemos remains in the middle and VOX does not really see the effect of the failed vote of no confidence. The PP leader Feijóo sees his popularity plummet again: Only 21% of those polled rate him positively.
Sumar’s entry shakes up the Spanish political landscape considerably. Yolanda Díaz’s party breaks in with 9.7% of the vote. Meanwhile, Podemos is left with half of the estimate obtained by Unidas Posemos. This is evident from the monthly Simple Lógica survey for elDiario.es.
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Losing votes
The PP and the PSOE are losing votes for the third month in a row. With almost two points, their fall almost parallels that of party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo. Previously, he was the favourite to win the election.
However, it now appears that the PSOE is more resistant to Sumar’s entry. Another conclusion drawn is that Feijóo fails to exhaust Vox after his failed vote of no confidence. Moreover, he also sees his popularity plummet again among his own voters. In the year that he has been the leader of the PP, appreciation for him among citizens has halved. Furthermore, he is no longer even among the four highest-rated politicians and drops to fifth place.
Survey
Simple Lógica’s April survey included Sumar for the first time since Yolanda Díaz, vice president and minister of labour announced on April 2 that the project would run in the general election. According to the poll, she will receive almost one in ten votes. Moreover, Díaz herself remains the best-rated politician with an increase of 3 points.
The survey was conducted between April 3 and 12, 2023. It distinguishes Sumar from Podemos because both formations have not yet reached an agreement to jointly participate in the elections.
The survey no longer refers to Unidas Podemos as a whole. That is the name of the confluence of several left-wing parties in the 2019 elections. Some partners, such as Izquierda Unida or En Comú, have indicated they want to join Sumar. Therefore, that is why Podemos is mentioned alone again. Otherwise, it would reflect a decline that could be misleading.
“To estimate the Sumar data for the first time, Simple Lógica collected the spontaneous responses of the respondents who alluded to voting for Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, or said they would vote for Más País or Izquierda Unida”, indicates Luis Ramos, executive director of Simple Lógica.
Partido Popular (PP)
The April estimate would maintain the PP as the largest party if elections were held now. Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party would win 28.1% of the vote, well above Pablo Casado’s results (21%). There is, however, a decrease of seven-tenths for the party. In January, the formation had almost 30% of the vote and a three-point lead over the PSOE; Now he fights to keep the two points and takes advantage of the fact that the socialists too cannot stop their decline.
PSOE
The PSOE would now receive 26.2% of the vote, in its case almost two points less than the 28% it achieved in the November 2019 elections. The formation of current Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has fallen by eight-tenths since March. In the third month, they fell below 27% for the first time since September. The news for the PSOE is that in the first month of Sumar’s weighting, the PSOE loses 7.9% of its voters to the new formation.
Vox stands after the motion of censure
The far-right party Vox remains third. The failed no-confidence motion with Ramón Tamames as the candidate earned them reproaches from all parliamentary parties. In the end, the PP abstained from voting. Yet this has not affected their voting expectations. If a general election were held now, Vox would receive 15.4% of the vote, a tenth more than a month ago and very close to its 15% figure in 2019.
Sumar
Sumar comes in fourth place in the first poll in which the party is weighed. It is estimated that the formation of Yolanda Díaz receives 9.7% of the vote, mainly at the expense of Podemos.
As long as both formations do not sign an agreement to work together, Simple Lógica estimates that Sumar will overtake Podemos. Theormation of Ione Belarra alone would gain 6.3%. That’s half of what it reached before Sumar was included in the estimates.
Podemos
Podemos just registered several consecutive months of gains despite the controversy over the reform of the ‘only yes is yes’ law: Since December, the formation is up three points. That was only a six-tenth-point difference from the results of 2019 (13%).
Podemos mainly loses votes to Sumar. Nearly one in three voters leave. 9.5% goes to the PSOE and the rest is split between abstainers or voters who are undecided. Therefore, they only keep 37.7%.
The battle between left and right is getting smaller
Vox was the party with the highest percentage of voters in 2019 with 69%. 17.2 of this would go to the PP. Feijóo’s party retains 63.9% of Casado’s vote. Those they lose are voters who hesitate and those who say they will not vote. The PSOE retains 57.3% of the electorate, so the battle between left and right is shrinking again.
The bloc made up of PP, Vox and Ciudadanos fell to 45.5% of the vote, while the left bloc (PSOE, Sumar and Podemos) rose to 42.2%.
Feíjóo’s popularity plummets
Yolanda Díaz is once again the most popular leader in the poll. Both Pedro Sánchez and she have been battling for first place for months and both rise to 40.4% for Díaz and 38% for Sánchez in April. Almost seven points behind is the leader of Más País, Íñigo Errejón, with the same number of points as a month ago. The fourth position is for the leader of IU and the minister of consumption, Alberto Garzón with 22.8% of the vote. He now replaces Feijóo who receives the worst rating of his entire series.
The leader of the PP only gets a positive rating of 21%. That’s half of what he had when he rose to PP president a year ago after ousting Pablo Casado. Behind them are the leader of Ciudadanos, Inés Arrimadas and Santiago Abascal of Vox close together with 14.7% and 14.5% of the vote respectively. Ione Belarra of Podemos loses a point and is the politician with the worst rating in this poll.
