The first CIS after Ceuta: the PSOE falls two points and the PP stagnates

Barcelona / MadridThe PSOE is losing support, but it is holding on and would win the elections again, according to the first CIS since the crisis in Ceuta that began in July. The September barometer, published this Monday, gives the socialists 31% of the votes, two less than in the July survey, and sees how the PP is closing the gap, which stands at only 5.5 points difference –in the previous one it was almost eight–. The Popular Party, however, only rises half a point, from 25% to 25.5% of the estimated vote. The far-right Vox, which has tried to instrumentalize the migratory crisis, obtains a limited growth of 1.3 points (from 15.3% to 16.6%), while Se Acabó la Fiesta, the party of the ultra Alvise Pérez, falls from 2.6% to 1.8%.

On the progressive side, and apart from the PSOE, Sumar loses only four tenths and stands at 5.7%, while Podemos does grow and goes from 2.5% to 3.7% of the estimated vote, 1.2 points more. ERC remains stable at 2.5% (in July it obtained 2.7%) and Junts repeats the 0.7% of the previous barometer. Regarding the Basque parties, the PNB falls from 1% to 0.7% of the votes, the opposite path to that taken by EH Bildu, which goes from 0.8% to 1.3% of the votes. The BNG, in turn, obtains 0.7, two tenths less.

The survey, the first after the massive entry of migrants into Ceuta on July 30, was carried out between September 1 and 4 based on 4,042 interviews. All of them, as usual, were carried out with a proportional distribution of a minimum of 100 questionnaires per autonomous community with the exception, precisely, of the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, where a total of twenty interviews are set for each one, according to the CIS.

The situation in Ceuta has put the Spanish government against the ropes, but the barometer gives Pedro Sánchez arguments to support his goal: to finish the legislature, which ends in 2027. In the previous CIS, the socialists rose 1.7 points in estimated vote –up to 33% of the votes– despite the recent conviction of former minister José Luis Ábalos and the series of judicial cases that splash the party. The July barometer, however, also coincided with the investiture of the Andalusian president, the popular Juanma Moreno, after reaching an agreement with Vox.

The PP sees it as a "joke"

The PP has given no credibility to the CIS barometer and has labeled it a "bad taste joke". The popular spokesperson, Borja Sémper, has lamented that month after month it is proven that the body presided over by José Félix Tezanos "is used in a partisan manner". "Does anyone still believe what the CIS says?", Sémper said in a press conference, reports Andrea Zamorano. The PP spokesperson rejected that "an appearance of veracity" be given to a survey that "does not function with technical, serious, and verifiable criteria" and denounced that "it has not asked about what the Spanish people think of the government's management of the Ceuta crisis".