Who do left-wing voters want in the Moncloa?

MadridWhile the space to the left of the PSOE is still debating leadership and negotiating in extremis a formula to achieve unity, the Center for Sociological Research (CIS) has predicted an improvement in the result for the progressive bloc as a whole. According to the public body to which demoscopy experts have long attributed a bias, the PSOE and the Broad Front –without counting the rest of the plurinational majority– could add up to a percentage of the vote higher than that of the PP and Vox. However, beyond this preference for a progressive government pointed to by the CIS –unlike what other private polls indicate–, the October barometer published this Wednesday also positions some proper names as the favorites to reach the Moncloa.

Among the electorate as a whole, according to the CIS, the preferred candidate to be president of the Spanish government is Pedro Sánchez, who is the spontaneous choice of 25.8% of respondents. The next leader of the left most mentioned by the public, with 8.1% of responses placing him as the most liked, is the ERC spokesperson in Congress, Gabriel Rufián. After the republican comes Yolanda Díaz (2.2%) and Irene Montero (1%). However, the former will not run this time as the head of the list in the November 29th elections following the step aside she took as leader of Sumar. It will be the former mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, who heads the ballot that three and a half years ago carried the brand of the second vice president of the Spanish government. However, in the October CIS, conducted before Colau was designated as leader of the Broad Front, the leader of the Comuns does not appear.

According to the barometer data based on the memory of the vote in the 2023 general elections, the preferred politician for those people who voted for the Sumar candidacy, led three and a half years ago by Yolanda Díaz, is not any leader of the parties that make up the Broad Front (Más Madrid, Comuns, IU, and Sumar) but rather Rufián. The candidate for the republicans is the favorite of 29.9% and surpasses not only Díaz (8.1%) but also Irene Montero (7.6%) and the current Spanish president. Sánchez is, in fact, in second position and is the favorite of 27.5% of voters who chose Sumar three and a half years ago.

In contrast, the CIS data indicate that Sánchez is indeed the preferred option for ERC voters. The socialist is the most mentioned, in 38.2% of the responses, as the favorite to reach the presidency of the Spanish government, while Rufián is the choice of 27.5% of those who bet on the republican ballot and Díaz for 2.3%. Regarding those who voted for the PSOE, Sánchez is the favorite for 54.9% while Rufián is for 9.7%, Díaz for 3.4%, and Montero for 0.5%.

The dispute for unity

Popular support is one of the arguments that Podemos has put forward to defend that Rufián and Montero should head the left-wing candidacy. According to the 'purples', it is the tandem "that really responds to what the people are asking for" and they maintain that it must be the Broad Front that adapts to this formula of collaboration between them and ERC. Montero, in fact, has argued that she "will respect the result of what the majority says" that votes in the primaries that her party has organized, even though her candidacy is the only one that has been submitted to this vote. On the other hand, the Broad Front is betting that it should be Podemos that integrates into its candidacy led by Colau in Barcelona and Emilio Delgado (Más Madrid) in the Spanish capital. The former mayor has offered to step aside as leader of the candidacy to facilitate the agreement.