Feijóo chooses Catalonia and Albiol for the start of the 29-N campaign

MadridThe PP is well aware that the result it obtains in Catalonia on November 29th could be decisive. This is exactly what happened in the elections three and a half years ago, when the combined count of Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party and Vox in Congress fell just four seats short of an absolute majority. In 2023, the Popular Party came close to winning an additional deputy in both Girona and Lleida. And heading into the November 29th elections, the PP campaign team is "optimistic about improving results in Catalonia as a whole." The importance of this territory in the Popular Party's electoral calculations has been made evident by the choice of location to kick off the campaign. Next Thursday, Feijóo will give the starting signal in Badalona, accompanied by Xavier García Albiol, mayor of the city and head of the Popular Party's list for Barcelona.

Sources from the national PP leadership believe that the four seats that prevented Feijóo from reaching La Moncloa in 2023 could now be obtained solely through their growth in Catalonia. The polls are "favorable," they maintain, although they also advise caution to avoid getting their fingers burned again as they did on July 23rd. Back then, Feijóo made the same gesture. He opened the election campaign in Castelldefels, another municipality that, like Badalona, has a Popular Party mayor, Manu Reyes. In 2023, Feijóo had already prioritized Catalonia with the aspiration of obtaining a "historic" result there. The Popular Party improved its results (from 2 deputies in 2019 to 6), but remained far from the 12 deputies they obtained in 2000 with Josep Piqué as their candidate.

Three and a half years ago, Feijóo also chose Catalonia (specifically, Barcelona) to hold the central campaign event. The PP has not wanted to specify what presence the popular leader will have in Catalonia beyond the poster-hanging event next Thursday, November 12th. In a meeting with journalists, the campaign director and general secretary of the party, Miguel Tellado, only advanced that on Saturday, November 14th, Feijóo will hold an event in Santiago de Compostela and the following Saturday, November 21st, he will be at the Valencia bullring. Tellado did assure that the popular leader will tour practically all of Spain with a message focused on "management" and that there will be several parallel campaign agendas by other members of the PP leadership and also by territorial barons.

The forecast is that some regional presidents, such as Madrid's Isabel Díaz Ayuso and Andalusia's Juanma Moreno, will have a campaign agenda even outside their own autonomous communities. Next Tuesday the PP will present its electoral program, and the following day, coinciding with the general strike, Feijóo will go to the Antena 3 comedy show El hormiguero. His team does not close the door to also visiting the competition, La Revuelta,from TVE, after the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, has accepted the invitation and his presence on the program has been announced for next Monday.

"The necessary change", campaign slogan

This Friday Tellado also presented the campaign slogan. The PP's choice is "The necessary change". The pre-campaign has revolved around the slogan "Finally" and now the Popular Party wants to make it clear that on November 29th there are only two options: "either Sánchez continues or Feijóo arrives", who they present as this "necessary change" for Spain. "It is the most important campaign in the history of our country and of the PP", stated Tellado, who affirmed that they have a "favorable framework" because they consider that they start with an advantage when it comes to claiming Feijóo's management profile in the face of the "collapse" of the PSOE, which is suffering the wear and tear of the train accident in Toledo.