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

Barcelona / MadridThe PSOE loses support due to the crisis in Ceuta but holds on and would win the elections again, according to the CIS. 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 narrows the gap, standing at only 5.5 percentage points of difference - in the previous one they were almost eight. The conservatives, however, only rise by half a point, from 25 to 25.5% of the estimated vote. The far-right party Vox, which has tried to exploit the crisis, obtains limited growth of 1.3 points (from 15.3 to 16.6%), while Se Acabó la Fiesta, the party of the extremist Alvise Pérez, falls from 2.6 to 1.8%.

On the progressive side, and aside 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 with 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 of 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 30th, was conducted between September 1st and 4th based on 4,042 interviews. All of them, as usual, were carried out with a proportional distribution of a minimum of 100 interviews per autonomous community with the exception, precisely, of the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, where a total of 20 interviews is set for each, 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 exhaust 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 inauguration of the Andalusian president, the conservative Juanma Moreno, after reaching a pact with Vox.