Midnight this Thursday marks the official start of the electoral campaign for the general elections on November 29, a 15-day race in which the main candidates will travel across Spain seeking votes in rallies, public events, and televised debates.
Pedro Sánchez, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, Santiago Abascal, and Ada Colau have already confirmed the locations where their respective parties will open their campaigns.
Pedro Sánchez opens the campaign in Seville
The head of the Executive and socialist candidate, Pedro Sánchez, will once again choose Seville for the campaign launch, with a rally at the Fibes Auditorium, a usual venue for the PSOE and also the site of its last congress. The President of the Government thus returns to the Andalusian capital as a starting point, just as he did in the two general elections held in 2019, while in the July 2023 elections he opted for Madrid.
The socialists face the last two weeks before the polls open after an intense pre-campaign, marked by numerous events by Pedro Sánchez and abruptly cut short by the railway tragedy in Urda (Toledo).
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, in Badalona with Xavier García Albiol
The leader of the Popular Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has chosen Badalona, in Barcelona, to officially kick off the campaign, in an event where he will be accompanied by the mayor of this municipality and PP candidate for Congress for Barcelona, Xavier García Albiol.
The PP begins the campaign in Catalonia aware of the relevance of this area for the battle for the Palacio de la Moncloa, due to the weight of its seat distribution, 48 out of 350. Currently, the popular party has six deputies in this community, five for Barcelona and one for Tarragona, although they aspire to improve their results in the Barcelona province and to obtain representation in Lleida and Girona.
During the campaign, Alberto Núñez Feijóo will have the support of his territorial barons and former Prime Ministers José María Aznar and Mariano Rajoy, in an agenda focused on seeking support for "change" and "national reconstruction".
Santiago Abascal returns to Plaza de Colón
The president of Vox, Santiago Abascal, has chosen Madrid's Plaza de Colón for the campaign opening, an enclave with strong symbolic significance for the party, which has convened demonstrations and other events there with tens of thousands of attendees.
Abascal arrives at the poster pasting after a very active pre-campaign throughout the country, with more than twenty provinces visited since the announcement of the early election more than a month ago. The last week has also been marked by his interview on La Revuelta, where presenter David Broncano even admitted: "I messed up". According to the Vox leader, the communicator "had a bad time" during the conversation due to pressure from the left.
Ada Colau and Irene Montero kick off in Madrid
The candidate of Frente Amplio, the Catalan Ada Colau, has chosen Madrid to open the campaign, with a rally alongside the head of the list for the capital, Emilio Delgado (Más Madrid), the leader of Izquierda Unida (IU) Toni Valero and the leader of Movimiento Sumar, Verónica Martínez.
The poster pasting will take place in Puente de Vallecas, one of the districts traditionally associated with the alternative left in the capital and with a strong working-class consciousness. On Friday, Ada Colau plans to focus her agenda on media attention and interviews.
Thus, the first campaign event will take place in Seville, a key area for the coalition as it is one of the communities that distributes the most deputies and where these elections show high electoral fragmentation with up to three candidacies to the left of the PSOE (Frente Amplio, Podemos and Adelante Andalucía).
For her part, the candidate of Podemos and former Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, will also open the campaign in Madrid alongside the party's general secretary, Ione Belarra. Her first electoral event will take place on Friday in Alcalá de Henares and, subsequently, she will travel to Palma de Mallorca to participate in an event with the head of the ERC list, Gabriel Rufián, within the framework of the collaboration agreement between both formations.
The Balearic case also presents a peculiarity, as the alternative left has managed to articulate a unitary candidacy. Ara Més agreed on a coalition with the parties of Frente Amplio and Podemos later closed an agreement with the Balearic formation to integrate their lists as independents, in the third position.
Debates planned by the Television Academy
Parallel to the opening events, the candidates of the four national parties will face each other in electoral debates organized by the Television Academy. Pending the finalization of dates and format, a face-to-face debate between Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo is expected, as well as a four-way debate that would also include Santiago Abascal and Ada Colau.
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