Briefing
The head of the regional government Pedro Sánchez announced the dissolution of the Cortes and the calling of an early election for Sunday, 29 November 2026, in an official statement on 5 October 2026. The announcement is available on the website of the Presidency of the Government (La Moncloa); it provides the immediate political context for the subsequent poll releases.
At the same time, the polling institute 40dB. published fieldwork dates from 25 to 28 September 2026 in a poll commissioned by El País and the Cadena SER and has made the datasets available for reuse. According to the survey, Vox is growing significantly at the expense of the Partido Popular: El País reports that around 13.5 per cent of those who voted for the Partido Popular’s candidate at the time in 2023 are now attributed to Vox in the 40dB. sample. The published methodology and the raw data provided allow the figures to be independently checked and replicated.
The parties reacted immediately to the election announcement: EFE reports that Santiago Abascal welcomed the election being brought forward. The situation nevertheless remains volatile: polls are snapshots, and projecting them into seat forecasts depends on weighting methods, response rates and stratification assumptions.
The editorial correction was made because the initial version contained inadequately evidenced claims about alleged voter transfers. The verified primary sources (La Moncloa; 40dB. / El País / Cadena SER; EFE) now substantiate both the election date and the transfer rates reported in the 40dB. study; the raw data are publicly available, ensuring transparency and verifiability.
Further assessments and possible projections, however, require careful methodological processing of the published matrices and clear identification of the weighting and conversion rules used.
Editor: Phillipe Schmidt-Araguin (Article created with AI assistance).