Feijóo's difficult challenge

For some time now, elections have been decided more within each ideological bubble than in the middle of the field. Powerful algorithms create an online menu tailored to the desires of each social group, and the media are generally dragged into these same practices (see now the fight between private television stations and TVE ), so that voters only receive signals that reinforce their opinions. But crucial battles are being fought within the bubble itself. For a time, Podemos challenged the PSOE for hegemony, but now the fight is taking place on the right.

The suspicion toward Vox has faded among conservative voters. It's become normal not only to accept the far-right ballot, but also to explain to a pollster that one intends to do so. Voting politically incorrect opinions is now so common that it's almost considered mainstream, so the bar for impertinence is rising. This is the main problem facing the PP. Vox's leaders barely have to make an effort to be present in the public conversation. Social media algorithms prioritize their theses, radiated from Washington and rebounded by Silicon Valley to all corners of the globe. But the PP, like other conservative parties, struggles to be heard amidst this clamor and finds no other way to combat it than to join the noise. Their discourse, in the end, runs the risk of becoming mired in confusion.

Ayuso practices hyperbolic declarative incontinence to monopolize and leave no room for anyone.

Stopping the flow of votes to Vox, which is still a populist and largely anti-establishment party, and simultaneously presenting itself as a state party is an exhausting contortion. This objective difficulty that plagues the traditional right also affects Alberto Núñez Feijóo and is Pedro Sánchez's main incentive to extend his term as long as possible. Feijóo faces two challenges: strengthening his leadership and galvanizing his own troops. It's not that his candidacy is in question. Although there is much talk about the ambitions of Isabel Díaz Ayuso or the options of Juanma Moreno Bonilla, everyone in the PP knows that opening such a can of worms would be political suicide. However, Feijóo is a collateral victim of a paradox: the PP has a lot of territorial power, which is always a blessing for a party, but he is not in the Moncloa Palace, which means that the barons participate in the political debate, each with the emphasis that best suits them, leaving the leader, sometimes voluntarily and sometimes unwillingly, in a secondary role. In particular, Ayuso's lack of declarative continence , always in hyperbolic clash with the left, distorts any of Génova's strategies. The leader saturates the debate, monopolizes it, and leaves no room for anything or anyone. Hence, Feijóo calls one summit after another of barons that unite the discourse on financing, immigration , and other thorny issues within his party in the face of harassment from Vox.

Sánchez is joining the culture war from the left and is focusing on highlighting all the issues where these contradictions within the PP and between it and Vox may arise. Whether it's the genocide in Gaza, which has led Feijóo to engage in rhetorical balancing acts, or abortion, which the PP has always considered an issue to be sidelined given internal differences and which the Madrid mayor brought to light by falling into Vox's trap with the false "post-abortion syndrome." Sánchez will try the same with regional funding: trying to get some PP barons interested in the government's proposal to make it difficult for Feijóo to criticize the whole thing, although in this case, squaring off the sudoku with ERC will not be easy for the Socialists.

Sánchez focuses on highlighting those issues that cause division among the PP electorate.

It's no longer enough for the PSOE to raise the scarecrow of fear of the far right and insist that the PP will reach an agreement with Vox. That statement alone isn't enough. Its strategy now is to erode Feijóo's leadership. The rise of Santiago Abascal's party serves to weaken the PP leader. For the Socialists, in the short term, the rise of Vox would also allow for some punishment of the PP in the next two elections, those of Castile and León and Andalusia. If in some provinces the PP falls behind Vox, the distribution of seats under the d'Hondt law would no longer favor the PP. The management of crises such as the Dana or the fires, and even the healthcare system in the case of Andalusia, wears down the PP in favor of Vox, which long ago preferred to withdraw from the regional governments precisely to avoid such erosion. That is the hope of the PSOE after regaining the breath lost in the fateful months of June and July.

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For all these reasons, Sánchez's objective is to hold on and make the time until the elections seem long for Feijóo. This is a message the president has sent to the PP by announcing that he will be a candidate in 2027, but also to his party, since Sánchez's main annoyance, aside from the fights on his left, stems from the concern that the ongoing corruption investigations could cause in the PSOE. Above all, those that may arise from the Cerdán case , more than those concerning his family, which he even hopes will provoke a closing of ranks among his electorate. The PSOE wants to burst the bubble on the right, where much of the game is at stake.