After another month of 'horribilis' in July due to the imprisonment of the until then Secretary of Organization, Santos Cerdán, in which the PSOE found itself in the abyss and even Pedro Sánchez shuffled the electoral advance, the socialists have recovered a certain spirit and no longer consider everything lost. The Government is making an effort to avoid an electoral scenario, even if the General State Budget fails, the preparation of which is “very advanced”, according to the vice president and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero. Sánchez will decide to press the button to dissolve the Cortes when it suits him best and for now the message that Moncloa sends is that “there is a legislature for a while.”
The socialists have been reinforced in recent weeks by issues such as the war in Gaza, the erratic policy of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, whom Moncloa sees as out of place, in a clamp between Isabel Díaz Ayuso and Vox that undermine his leadership. And they are seen resurfacing to some extent in the polls. Sánchez has already made it clear that the legislature will not end even if the Budgets do not go ahead and the message remains for the moment in light of the ultimatum issued by Junts, whose management will analyze next Monday the possibility of definitively breaking with the socialists. Moncloa is calm about this possibility because they do not see it viable for a hypothetical motion of censure against Sánchez to succeed, which would require the support of at least PP, Vox and Junts.
In the PSOE they see with a certain optimism the polls that, despite the wear and tear due to corruption, parliamentary weakness or judicial cases, do not risk their absolute collapse. Those polls, like the barometer of the 40dB institute for El País and Cadena SERpoint to a comeback for the PSOE – the last CIS even gave it a 15-point advantage over Feijóo's team – which is hot on the heels of the PP as the first force with just one point behind. However, they place Vox in a strong third position at the expense of Feijóo, although together they are close to 50% of the votes, while the parties to the left of the PSOE remain on the decline.
Therefore, one of lime and one of sand. What they believe in the PSOE is that they resist in a completely adverse context, with a judicial siege on the party and the president's entourage and a complex parliamentary arithmetic that makes legislative capacity difficult, despite what they try to resist. In the socialist ranks they consider the wear and tear caused by the legal cases affecting Sánchez's wife and brother to be amortized, while they recognize that the corruption cases of Cerdán and José Luis Ábalos in the so-called 'Koldo case' as well as the conversations about prostitutes do take their toll on them, although they also believe that the damage has already been amortized.
No options in Castilla y León and Andalusia
With these goals, the PSOE faces the start of the electoral cycle with a certain spirit, although without great expectations of recovering territorial power. The first stop will be Castilla y León, where they are recovering from an internal war – largely caused by the long shadow of Cerdán from the Organization Secretariat – that ended with the departure of Luis Tudanca and the election of Carlos Martínez as general secretary.
The mayor of Soria will be the candidate in elections in which the socialists do not see the goal of being the first force far away due to the wear and tear of Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, who has never finished emerging, and who is in low hours due to the management of this summer's fires. Also due to the competition from Vox, very strong in that territory, and to a lesser extent, due to the transfer of votes that could occur towards the Union of the Leonese People (UPL).
Sánchez is especially dedicated to the campaign in that province. Last week he was in León twice with an institutional agenda and this weekend he will close a few days, in which the participation of a couple of ministers is expected, which will be the starting signal for Martínez's candidacy, whom his federation does not yet see activated and with electoral drive after a start with some setbacks.
The socialists assume that governing that land is not feasible because the numbers are not going to match the rest of the forces, especially Podemos, which is risking the survival of its only deputy, Pablo Fernández, who is the national spokesperson. The possibility that Luis Tudanca had in 2019, and that Ciudadanos prevented by agreeing with the PP, is very distant, according to the sources consulted who, however, would see a good result of being in first position if Vox snatches part of the electorate from the PP. “It is not bad to start the electoral cycle as the first force,” they maintain. This situation would also place Feijóo in front of his newspaper library given that he has always defended that the list with the most votes should be allowed to govern.
The next battle of that cycle is Andalusia, where Juanma Moreno Bonilla is entrenched. The socialists' dream of breaking the absolute majority that leaves the PP in the hands of Vox, as in other communities, is approaching reality, according to the polls. The quarterly barometer of the Andalusian Studies Foundation (Centra), the so-called Andalusian CIS, predicted this scenario a few weeks ago, since the field work was carried out before the breast cancer screening scandal, placing Moreno Bonilla on the verge of losing hegemony.
The Andalusian president himself recognized in the circles of the Royal Palace on October 12 that it was a feasible scenario. Moreno Bonilla used the fear of Vox and the useful vote strategy four years ago to revalidate his position on the Board with an absolute majority and not depend on the extreme right. He will undoubtedly use that strategy again.
What they assume in the socialist ranks is that Sánchez's move to place his 'number two', María Jesús Montero, who will have to abandon the vice presidency (and the Ministry of Finance), does not seem to bear fruit. However, they are also awaiting the level of wear and tear that the breast cancer screening scandal will mean for Moreno Bonilla. After a few initial moments of anxiety, the Government has brought out its artillery against the Junta de Andalucía for what Sánchez called the “main reputational crisis of the National Health System.”
“Lies, bad management, cuts and lack of protection for women. It's the way you govern,” Sánchez told Feijóo in Congress on Wednesday. “Put order in your party,” he added before reproaching him for having “given up on holding Moreno Bonilla accountable.” The PP, for its part, has reacted with a boycott to the demand for data on screenings that the Ministry of Health has demanded.
Left-right tie in Comunitat Valenciana
They see more options in the Valencian Community given the wear and tear of Carlos Mazón due to the negligent management of DANA in which 229 people died. “It is in the territory where we have the most options to turn around,” says a PSPV leader, who sees a “technical tie between the left and the right.” In the federation led by Minister Diana Morant, they consider that the key to governing will be mobilization and what happens in the space to the left of the PSOE. “We need three candidates from the left that exceed the 5% threshold,” says that source, who recalls the Botánico Pact that allowed Ximo Puig to govern the Generalitat in 2015 and 2019 with Compromís and Podemos.
The Community of Madrid has been the great headache of the PSOE for three decades. In the socialist ranks they admit that beating Isabel Díaz Ayuso is complicated, despite the fact that they are doing the rest from the top of the PSOE and Moncloa, and that for the first time they observe greater wear and tear in Ayuso. Sánchez entrusted that position to one of his most trusted people, Óscar López.
Madrid, goal 2031
“Things are going well, but I think the goal is 2031,” says a veteran socialist from Madrid, who argues that the project must be established. That was precisely what they said in Ferraz with the candidacy of Juan Lobato, who took the reins shortly before the 2023 elections. Then they maintained that their moment would be 2027, but a series of errors, his attempt to differentiate himself from Sánchez and, above all, the recording before a notary of a conversation with the now Secretary of Organization about the email with the confession of Ayuso's partner dug his political grave. The surveys published at the moment do not reflect the wear and tear that the socialists see in Ayuso, although they do trust in recovering the leadership of the left against Más Madrid.
At the national level, the socialists maintain that there is still a long way to go before the elections and that the only “photo” that is useful is that of the ballot boxes versus the polls, but they consider that, when the time comes, there will be more progressive mobilization than the polls detect, although the litmus test will be in the tight arithmetic with the rest of the partners and the strength of the formations to their left, which right now are disintegrated and in low hours. For the moment, the strategy is based on resisting judicial blows, assuming the bill that the headlines pass on Ábalos and Cerdán, and on confronting the PP governments in ideological battles such as health, education and now also Gaza. And take advantage of 'unforced errors', such as the PP's leadership struggle or its internal contradictions on issues such as abortion, an issue that mobilizes the main group of socialist voters: women.