By Mireia Merino
MADRID, Nov 9 (Reuters) – Spain’s conservative People’s Party (PP) would beat Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists but require the right-wing Vox to secure a parliamentary majority, according to the latest polls in the run-up to a general election on November 29.
The electoral campaign starting in four days is expected to be dominated by issues such as housing, immigration and corruption, and reverberations of last month’s deadly train crash that triggered the resignation of Transport Minister Oscar Puente.
• A SocioMetrica poll published by El Español newspaper projected around 200 seats in the 350-seat lower house for the PP and Vox combined. The Socialists would get 108 seats, two more than in the previous survey. The poll, based on 5,460 online interviews and with a margin of error of 3 percentage points, showed a net transfer of 832,000 voters from the left to the right
• A survey by 40dB for El Pais showed the gap between the PP and the Socialists narrowing to 2 pp as the latter advanced 1.8 percentage points from the previous poll to 29.9% of voting intentions, but the combined right wing getting a working majority of around 190 seats. 40dB surveyed 2,000 online respondents and the margin of error was 2.2 percentage points
• A Sigma Dos poll published by El Mundo pointed to the Socialists recovering some ground lost after the crash and now likely to win 105 seats, but far behind the 199 seats for the PP and Vox. The survey of 4,172 respondents had a 2.1-percentage point margin of error
• An IMOP poll for El Confidencial focused on vote transfers rather than seat projections, pointing to a drop in voter loyalty for the Socialists and a rise for the PP, the latter largely at the expense of Vox supporters
• Spain’s hard-left parties last month were unable to agree on a common list of candidates, reducing Sanchez’s chances of staying in power at the head of a leftist coalition
• The polls showed the Broad Front poised to win 10 to 15 seats and its rival Podemos at risk of losing its parliamentary representation
(Reporting by Mireia Merino, editing by Andrei Khalip and Hugh Lawson)
