The 29N campaign kicks off with housing and undecided voters at the center: Sánchez seeks a comeback, Vox pressures a declining PP, and Colau and Montero dispute the "useful vote"

The campaign for the general elections on 29N has kicked off this midnight with polls divided on who will win and 15.8% of undecided voters in the CIS pre-election survey. Alberto Núñez Feijóo opened the PP campaign in Badalona, Pedro Sánchez called for an "epic comeback" in Seville, and Santiago Abascal closed the pre-campaign of the far-right Vox in Huesca, before his rally today in Colón. Ada Colau and Irene Montero separately gathered their militants in Madrid, with the housing strike still present in both events.

The first vote of the campaign was actually cast a few hours before it began. The Permanent Deputation of Congress validated by 35 votes to 34 the decree that extends certain rents and protects vulnerable households without housing alternatives from eviction until the end of 2030. PP, Vox, and Junts voted against it. The PNV supported this text and joined the rejection of the second decree, which concerned the automatic renewal of contracts. The vote came a day after labor and tenant unions took the general strike over housing prices, wages, and the cost of living.

Feijóo seeks to grow in Catalonia and Abascal brings his exclusion program to Colón

Feijóo chose the Llefià sports center in Badalona to call for a Catalonia "protagonist in the reconstruction" of Spain. He did so alongside the mayor and head of the list for Barcelona, Xavier García Albiol, in a community that distributes 48 deputies and where the PP obtained six in 2023, compared to the PSC's 19.

The popular candidate promised an "audit of the looting" to review the destination of public funds and brought to the rally his proposals to build one million homes in a legislature and expedite evictions due to occupation. His program proposes repealing the current Housing Law and prioritizing "the bond with Spain" in access to aid.

The PP leads most polls, but the advantage over the PSOE and the weight of the far-right Vox in a potential government are two distinct problems for Feijóo. In CIS cross-tabulations, one in five respondents who recall voting for the PP in 2023 now opt for Abascal. Recovering part of that electorate could improve the PP's position within a pact. To increase the sum of the two parties, however, it needs to win votes outside of that exchange or translate them better into seats. Feijóo meets today in Madrid with young members of the party alongside Isabel Díaz Ayuso and will continue the weekend in Santiago de Compostela and Santander. On Monday, he returns to Catalonia, to Lleida, where the PP failed to win a deputy in the last general elections.

Abascal closed the pre-campaign in Huesca with an attack on the political legitimacy of the Government, which he called a "criminal mafia", and linked renewables to the Urda railway accident without providing evidence. His program proposes reserving the minimum vital income for Spaniards, requiring legal residency to rent, limiting healthcare for irregular migrants to serious emergencies, and repealing gender laws. These are the concrete measures that Vox presents under the label of "national priority". The party holds its first major campaign rally today at 8:00 PM in Plaza de Colón, after a stop in Toledo, and on Saturday will take Abascal to Almería and Murcia.

Sánchez calls for the left to mobilize, and Colau and Montero dispute the "useful vote" of the left

Sánchez has asked women for four more years of progressive government at the Palacio de Congresos in Seville. There, he championed the recently validated housing decree, the increase in the minimum wage, and the revaluation of pensions, and thanked the unions after the strike. Begoña Gómez unexpectedly took the floor to thank the support received in recent months, and the audience responded with the cry of "you are not alone". The PSOE aims to increase its seats from five to six in Seville. Sánchez will be in Arnedo and Pamplona today and will present the electoral program on Sunday in Alcorcón.

In Cerro del Tío Pío, in Vallecas, Ada Colau has asked Frente Amplio to transfer the 11N mobilization to the polls. Emilio Delgado, head of the list for Madrid, has put a figure on the objective. According to his calculation, reaching 10% of the votes would allow the coalition to reach 22 deputies. The party has identified about fifteen constituencies in which it aims to dispute the last seat with the PP or Vox, including Seville, Malaga and Zaragoza.

The housing proposal presented by Delgado allows us to understand what he wants to bring to that negotiation. He proposes recognizing tenant unions and allowing that, in the event of landlord breaches, tenants deposit the entire rent into a public fund during a rent strike. Colau will be in Seville on Saturday and in Zaragoza on Sunday, together with Chunta Aragonesista.

Irene Montero has opened Podemos' campaign in Madrid alongside its general secretary, Ione Belarra, with a reply to those who ask to concentrate the vote on the PSOE. "To stop the far right, you have to vote for Podemos," she defended. The former Minister of Equality has demanded lower rents and prohibit real estate speculation, two measures to which she adds a cap on food prices among her conditions to support another investiture of Sánchez.

This Friday she will campaign in Palma with the ERC candidate, Gabriel Rufián. On Saturday she will travel to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, where Podemos shares a candidacy with Frente Amplio forces, and on Sunday she will be in Seville.

Almost four out of ten 23J voters decided their ballot from the start of the campaign

28.4% of those who voted in the 2023 general elections decided their ballot during the campaign, according to the post-electoral study by the Center for Sociological Research (CIS). 12.5% chose it at the beginning and another 15.9% during the last week. If those who waited until the day of reflection or election Sunday itself are added, the figure reaches 38.5%. This data was collected after the polls, among people who did vote. The 15.8% of undecided voters from the pre-electoral 29N, on the other hand, measures those who were still undecided when asked between October 7 and 30.

The late decision was also not equally distributed. 72.3% of Vox voters and 69.9% of PP voters had already chosen their ballot before the 2023 campaign, compared to 60.1% of PSOE voters and 48.7% of Sumar voters. The challenge for Sánchez is to mobilize those who hesitate between voting and staying home. Colau and Montero also dispute those who do want to vote, but hesitate between several left-wing ballots. The distribution is done by provinces. A seat that goes from Vox to a left-wing candidacy subtracts a vote from one bloc and adds it to the other in an investiture. In 2023, the recount of the foreign vote in Madrid already changed a PSOE deputy to the PP and forced Sánchez to seek Junts' yes.

The average of 19 polls published by El Voto Útil, with data from November 12 and without the CIS, places the PP at 31.1%, the PSOE at 26.9%, Vox at 19.1%, Frente Amplio at 6.4% and Podemos at 2%. Their projection gives 190 deputies to PP and Vox. The official CIS macro-survey places the PSOE first with 33.3% and leaves Feijóo and Abascal at 171 even when adding the maximums of their ranges. Between both scenarios, the SW Demoscopia tracking that La Séptima disseminated last night gives 134 deputies to the PSOE, 113 to the PP and 60 to Vox. The difference between the polls thus reaches the two questions that will mark the campaign: who comes first and who can gather the support to govern.

The first televised campaign event will be tonight at 9:30 PM, with Carlos Cuerpo, Juan Bravo, José María Figaredo, and Pablo Bustinduy in the laSexta debate moderated by Ana Pastor. The face-to-face between Sánchez and Feijóo, which their parties are preparing with the Television Academy, still has no date. In the debate between several candidacies, Montero demands her participation and Ferraz has denied to ‘ElConstitucional.es’ that it will veto her. The campaign ends on Friday, the 27th, at midnight, and the polls will open on Sunday, the 29th.