Spain's right still clears a majority in polls. The PSOE just closed to two points.

Three weeks before Spain votes, the latest 40dB survey for El País and Cadena SER still gives the People's Party and Vox a working majority in the Congress of Deputies. The same poll shows Pedro Sánchez's Socialists closing the gap with Alberto Núñez Feijóo's PP to two percentage points, inside the survey's margin of error. That combination — a right-wing seat majority that holds, and a two-party race that has tightened — is the central finding of the fieldwork published on November 9.

This article reports the numbers from the 40dB pre-electoral report we opened, places them next to other recent seat projections, and sets out how each camp reads the same charts. It also records what Spaniards in the sample said they prefer and expect for the next government. A poll is a snapshot of stated intention, not a forecast of November 29.

The chart above places selected Spanish parties on editorial left–right and social axes. Those coordinates are dated estimates. They are not poll results and do not predict seats.

What 40dB measured#

Fieldwork ran from November 2 to November 4, 2026, among 2,000 adults living in Spain (except Ceuta and Melilla) who are 18 or older and have the right to vote. Interviews were online (CAWI). The reported sampling error is ±2.2 percentage points at 95 percent confidence. Quotas covered sex and age (crossed), autonomous community, habitat size and social class, according to the survey's technical sheet. The final stretch of interviews overlapped the hours after Transport Minister Óscar Puente resigned over the Urda rail crash.

On estimated vote share among valid ballots, 40dB puts the People's Party at 31.9 percent, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party at 29.9 percent, Vox at 18.0 percent, Frente Amplio at 5.0 percent, SALF at 2.0 percent and Podemos at 1.2 percent. Compared with the July 2023 general election, that is a 1.2-point drop for the PP, a 1.8-point drop for the PSOE, a 5.6-point rise for Vox and a 7.3-point drop for the Sumar space that Frente Amplio now partly occupies. Compared with 40dB's October flash poll, the PP is flat at 31.9 percent, the PSOE is up 1.8 points from 28.1 percent, and Vox is down almost a point from 18.9 percent.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

PP31.9%

PSOE29.9%

Vox18%

Frente Amplio5%

SALF2%

Podemos1.2%

PPPSOEVoxFrente AmplioSALFPodemos

Source: 40dB pre-electoral report for El País and Cadena SER

Show the numbers

Party	Estimate
PP	31.9%
PSOE	29.9%
Vox	18%
Frente Amplio	5%
SALF	2%
Podemos	1.2%

Seat projections are the pollster's conversion of those shares under Spain's provincial d'Hondt rules. Absolute majority in the 350-seat Congress is 176. 40dB's central estimate gives the PP 129 seats (range 124–137), the PSOE 119 (115–123), Vox 61 (58–64) and Frente Amplio 10 (7–11). Podemos is projected at 0 seats (range 0–1). Adding the PP and Vox central figures yields 190 seats, about 14 above the majority line. In October the same pollster had the PP at 132 seats and Vox at 66; the right bloc has shed seats while the PSOE has gained seven.

• November
• October flash

PP

129

132

PSOE

119

112

Vox

61

66

Frente Amplio

10

5

Source: 40dB pre-electoral report for El País and Cadena SER

Show the numbers

Party	November	October flash
PP	129	132
PSOE	119	112
Vox	61	66
Frente Amplio	10	5

Other published polls in early November point the same way on the bloc math even when they disagree on the exact gap between PP and PSOE. France 24, summarizing SocioMétrica for El Español, Sigma Dos for El Mundo and the 40dB wave, reported combined PP–Vox seat totals near 190 to 200 and Socialist seat totals in the low-to-mid 100s. RTVE's published poll average at the time of Sánchez's Bilbao rally put the PP near 133 seats, the PSOE near 107 and Vox near 67. Those averages are not a single survey; they are a secondary compilation.

How the camps read the same numbers#

For Feijóo's PP, the headline is still a path to government. A PP-plus-Vox majority near 190 seats would, if it holds on election night, let the opposition replace Sánchez without needing Catalan or Basque partners. Feijóo's public line, set out in interviews with laSexta and El País and covered below in our reporting on coalition red lines, is that he prefers a PP government alone and would accept parliamentary support or a coalition with Vox if the arithmetic requires it.

For Sánchez's PSOE, the same poll is read as evidence that the Urda crash did not reverse a late recovery. The Socialists' 1.8-point rise from October, and the two-point gap with the PP, sit inside the ±2.2-point error band. PSOE campaign messages since the crash have shifted toward pensions, the minimum wage and abortion rights, as in Sánchez's Bilbao pledges. The poll does not ask whether those messages caused the rise. It only records the timing: fieldwork after the crash and after Puente's resignation.

For Vox, the November estimate ends three months of rises in 40dB's series. At 18.0 percent and 61 seats, the party is still well above its 12.4 percent and 33 seats in 2023, and it remains the necessary partner in every published majority for the right. Abascal's public message, reported by El Independiente, is that Spaniards want "radical" change "from the root" and that governing with Vox in four regions has shown that "nothing grave happens."

For the left of the PSOE, the picture is harder. Frente Amplio — the Ada Colau–led list that partly replaces Sumar — is at 5.0 percent and about 10 seats, against the 31 seats Sumar held after 2023. Podemos, running alone, is at 1.2 percent and at risk of leaving Congress. 40dB's transfer tables show that only about 37 percent of 2023 Sumar voters say they would now vote Frente Amplio, with large shares moving to the PSOE, to other options or to indecision. That fragmentation is one reason every published poll has the left short of 176 even when the PSOE recovers.

What people say they want, and what they expect#

The 40dB questionnaire separates preferred government from expected government. Among the general sample, 25.4 percent say they would prefer a PP–Vox coalition (up 8.7 points from the July 2023 pre-electoral wave), 23.0 percent prefer a PSOE–Frente Amplio coalition, 14.5 percent prefer the PP alone and 13.8 percent prefer the PSOE alone. Asked what they expect to happen, 42.4 percent say they expect a PP–Vox government, up 13.4 points from July 2023, while 17.2 percent expect a PSOE–Frente Amplio government.

Those preference and expectation figures are not the same as vote intention. A voter can intend to vote PSOE and still expect Feijóo to form a cabinet with Vox. The rise in expected PP–Vox government is one of the clearest shifts in the report relative to 2023.

On alliances already announced, net opinion (share saying "good" or "very good" minus "bad" or "very bad") is slightly positive (+3.1) for the PP–Vox Senate non-compete deal in selected provinces, near flat (−0.4) for a joint PSOE–Frente Amplio Senate ticket, and clearly negative for the Podemos–ERC pairing (−17.8) and for Frente Amplio and Podemos running separately (−13.8).

Limits and open questions#

Several limits matter. The sample excludes Ceuta and Melilla. Online panels can under- or over-represent people who are hard to reach offline. Seat ranges for the PP (124–137) and the PSOE (115–123) overlap the possibility that either finishes first in seats even if the central estimate favors the PP. Regional parties — ERC, Junts, PNV, EH Bildu, BNG and others — still decide investiture math when neither bloc clears 176, and their combined "others" block is estimated near 30 seats. The poll was taken before formal campaigning began and before any televised leaders' debate.

Spain's political spectrum page and party profiles for the PSOE, PP, Vox, Sumar and Podemos give longer background on program positions. They do not substitute for election results.

What remains unknown is whether the PSOE's post-crash recovery continues, stalls or reverses once the campaign starts; whether Vox's soft decline from October is noise or a ceiling; and whether Feijóo can convert a bloc majority into a cabinet that his red lines and Vox's demands can both accept. Those questions are for voters on November 29 and for the investiture talks that would follow.

Vote transfers and the left's leak#

40dB's transfer table, built from recalled 2023 vote, shows high retention for the three largest parties and a broken path for the old Sumar vote. About 75.0 percent of 2023 PP voters say they would vote PP again; 74.2 percent of 2023 PSOE voters stay with the PSOE; 85.5 percent of 2023 Vox voters stay with Vox. Sumar's 2023 voters split: 37.4 percent say they would now choose Frente Amplio, 22.0 percent say PSOE, 19.3 percent are undecided or list other options, and smaller shares move to Vox, Podemos or abstention. Among people who say they did not vote in 2023, 32.0 percent now lean PP, 15.1 percent lean Vox and 13.6 percent lean PSOE in the table's truncated presentation.

Those flows help explain why a PSOE rise of almost two points since October has not restored a left majority. Gains from former Sumar voters and from some undecideds lift Sánchez's share, but they do not rebuild the 2023 Sumar seat pile. Podemos's 1.2 percent estimate leaves it below the effective provincial thresholds in most districts. The Podemos and Sumar party pages record the programmatic split that preceded this ballot design; the poll measures the electoral cost.

France 24's November 9 summary of an IMOP Insights poll for El Confidencial stressed the same transfer story from another angle: falling loyalty among Socialist voters and PP gains drawn in part from people who had considered Vox. We cite that summary as secondary reporting. We did not open IMOP's full tables for this article.

Housing, the strike call and why the election was called#

The snap election itself grew out of a housing fight. On October 2, Congress rejected two emergency housing decrees by 178–172 and 184–166, with the PP, Vox and Junts among those voting no, according to the BBC and Euronews. Sánchez dissolved parliament on October 5. Our separate housing story tracks that sequence and the campaign arguments that followed. In the 40dB report, a dedicated block of questions covers housing, a possible strike and economic mood; those pages are part of the same PDF. This article does not re-litigate every housing item. It notes that the election's origin issue remains live while the poll's lead finding is still the right bloc's seat majority.

Half of the general sample — 50.6 percent — told 40dB these elections are "much more important" than other general elections, up 21.3 points from the comparable July 2023 question. Another 20.6 percent called them "more important." That intensity figure is highest among recalled Vox and PP voters in the crosstabs. Intensity is not the same as turnout, and the poll does not publish a turnout model in the pages we extracted.

What this poll does not settle#

No single survey decides an election three weeks away. Provincial magnitude, the Senate map, and late shifts among soft PSOE and soft Vox voters can move seats inside the published ranges. Corruption cases involving people close to the Socialists, the Ceuta migration crisis of late July, and the Urda investigation all remain in the news environment; 40dB's vote question does not isolate their separate effects. Sánchez has framed the choice as progress against "involution"; Feijóo has framed it as a chance to remove Sánchez and start what he calls democratic regeneration. The poll records preferences and intentions. It does not referee those frames.

Cross-links for readers who want the coalition and pensions fights in more detail sit in our Feijóo–Vox and Sánchez Bilbao pieces published alongside this one. The world-reactions story records how Sánchez publicly read the U.S. midterms; that foreign cue is part of his mobilization message and is not measured as a vote driver in the 40dB tables we cite.

Sources and method#

Primary numbers and the technical sheet come from the 40dB pre-electoral PDF published for El País and Cadena SER, opened and read for this article on November 9, 2026. Secondary comparisons to SocioMétrica, Sigma Dos and RTVE averages are taken from France 24 and RTVE reporting. Background on the election call and the Urda resignation draws on the Moncloa transcript and our earlier Urda story. See our methodology for how we treat polls and attributed claims.

Differing perspectives

Do the latest polls show a likely PP–Vox government after November 29?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• A majority is not a finished coalition

  Who holds it: Analysts and voters focused on Feijóo's red lines and Vox's price for cabinet seats

  A third view accepts the seat math but says governing still depends on whether Feijóo and Abascal can write a deal. Feijóo prefers to govern alone and sets limits on gender-violence law, recentralization and equality policy; Vox wants national priority, deregulation and remigration and has demanded ministries in the regions. On this reading, polls answer who might win seats, not whether a stable cabinet follows.

  In their words: El Independiente (Feijóo red lines and Vox priorities) ↗

• Not yet: the race can still move

  Who holds it: PSOE campaign surrogates stressing the two-point PP–PSOE gap and post-Urda recovery

  This side argues that 40dB's ±2.2-point error band covers the PP–PSOE gap, that the Socialists gained 1.8 points since October even after the rail crash, and that seat ranges still overlap. They say three weeks of campaigning, pension and housing messages, and turnout among women and retirees can change soft voters. A poll, they stress, is not election night, and regional parties can still shape an investiture if neither bloc lands cleanly above 176.

  In their words: RTVE (Sánchez Bilbao mobilization message) ↗

• Yes: the right bloc clears 176 seats

  Who holds it: PP campaign readers of 40dB and other November polls; Feijóo's public path to government

  Supporters of this reading point to 40dB's central estimate of about 190 PP-plus-Vox seats, above the 176 majority, with SocioMétrica and Sigma Dos summaries also near 190–200. They argue that even if the PSOE closes the two-party gap, the left's fragmentation leaves Frente Amplio near 10 seats and Podemos near zero, so Sánchez cannot rebuild a majority. Preference and expectation questions in the same poll, they say, show more people now expect a PP–Vox cabinet than any other outcome.

  In their words: 40dB pre-electoral report for El País and Cadena SER ↗

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