Fear gives wings to Vox after the Ceuta crisis: the far-right grows, but clashes with Vivas' popular wall

The far-right Vox has tried to turn the massive influx of migrants on July 30 and 31 into a permanent campaign. In recent weeks, the far-right has spoken of an "invasion," blamed the central and Ceuta governments, attacked humanitarian organizations, and offered its deputies to join Juan Jesús Vivas's Executive. The first polls, however, paint a much more complex picture than the triumphalist narrative spread by Santiago Abascal's party.

Since the border crisis, two specific electoral estimates for Ceuta have been published, and their results are hardly compatible. One places Vox as the leading force and grants it a significant rise. The other, prepared with a larger sample and a smaller margin of error, leaves the far-right party practically where it was and places the Popular Party on the verge of sweeping everything.

The Sigma Dos poll for 'El Mundo', conducted between August 26 and 31 with 590 interviews, grants Vivas's PP 50.5% of the votes and between 13 and 14 seats, enough to regain an absolute majority. Vox would be in second position with 21.6% and between five and six representatives.

The comparison with the 2023 elections is revealing. The PP then obtained 34.3% and nine deputies, while Vox reached 20.6% and five seats. According to Sigma Dos, the far-right would have grown by only one point, a variation lower than the poll's margin of error. The real leap would correspond to Vivas, who would advance more than 16 points and could govern without depending on any other party.

Nor does a clear rise appear when looking at polls prior to the crisis. The two SYM Consulting studies published in 2025 already placed Vox at 24.2% and 24.3%, percentages even higher than what Sigma Dos now reports. These are works by different companies and do not allow for building an exact evolution, although they do confirm that the far-right already had a high electoral floor long before the massive influx.

The scenario changes completely in the ElectoPanel published at the end of August. That study places Vox in the lead with 31.8% and nine deputies, followed by the PP with 29.9% and eight seats. The sample is limited to 267 people and its margin of error reaches 6.1%. Between both polls, there is more than 20 points of difference for the PP and more than ten for Vox.

The distance is so great that, as the demographic portal Colmena de Datos has warned, the intervals of the two estimates barely allow for a common reading. The data that places Vox as the leading force is also the most fragile. Presenting it as a consolidated trend would mean granting a very reduced sample a precision it simply does not have.

Vivas preserves the dike against Vox

Juan Jesús Vivas has governed Ceuta since 2001 and faces the final stretch of his seventh term with nine of the 25 deputies in the Assembly. His political longevity, the personal weight he maintains among the conservative electorate, and his image as an institutional manager explain part of the resistance reflected in the Sigma Dos poll.

Vox knows this strength and has tried to take advantage of the crisis to force a change of alliances. Its local leader, Juan Sergio Redondo, offered in August the group's current four deputies to form a majority of 13 together with the PP. The proposal included the entry of the far-right into the Government and control of areas such as Presidency, Interior, and Public Health. Before extending a hand, Redondo had accused Vivas of "complicity, subservience, and submission" to Pedro Sánchez.

The Ceuta president has repeatedly rejected that option. The local Government again ruled out any agreement with Vox in April, and its spokesperson, Alberto Gaitán, assured that pacts based on "racial supremacy" would not reach the city. This position allows the PP to compete in the field of border security while maintaining a clear political distance from the far-right.

Vivas has hardened his discourse after July, has demanded accountability from the Government and Morocco, and has demanded a reinforcement of the border. That firmness may be helping him to concentrate the conservative vote, although it also entails a known risk. When expressions like "invasion" or "assault" dominate public conversation, the far-right Vox plays on the ground it has been preparing for years.

The ultra strategy relies on turning a human and management emergency into a conflict between neighbors. The tens of thousands of people who arrived in Ceuta have spent weeks in makeshift camps, transfers, lack of resources, fear, and growing hostility in the streets. Vox has used this suffering to attack social entities, label the Movement for Dignity and Citizenship as an "Islamist party," and present any reception measure as a concession.

National gain is more forceful: Vox has not peaked before the General Elections

Outside Ceuta, polls offer more indications of an improvement for the far-right Vox, although there is no unanimity either. The More in Common electoral pulse, based on 2,144 interviews, raises the party to 20.3%, 3.2 points more than in its previous study. It is the most pronounced growth recorded after the crisis and coincides with a sharp rise in concern about immigration.

The 40dB barometer for 'El País' and 'Cadena SER' shows a more modest advance, from 17.2% to 17.8%. The PP and Vox together would sum 50.2%, their best result during the legislature. The most useful data to understand the political moment appears in another question from the study. 27% of citizens consider Vox the most capable party to manage immigration, compared to 18.4% who choose the PSOE and 13.9% who point to the PP.

Other polls move in the same direction with different intensity. GAD3 places Vox at 19.2%, Sigma Dos at 17.9%, and NC Report at 18.3%. Data10, however, shows a decrease compared to its previous measurement, while Cluster17 leaves the party at 16.1%. The range of results prevents attributing an automatic and homogeneous rise to the crisis.

The polls do show that immigration has occupied the center of the debate and that Vox maintains an advantage when politics revolves almost exclusively around the border, fear, and disorder. The party has been working for years to appropriate that conversation and present itself as the toughest response. The PP can copy part of the language and toughen its proposals, but it runs the risk of reinforcing the question that most benefits Abascal.

In Ceuta, Vox gave another example of this strategy this Friday by voting against a subsidy of 30,000 euros for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). "If they want to eat, drink or wash, they know perfectly well where the border is," Redondo stated during the Assembly plenary session.