Recent barometers and cross-tabulations from the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas point to a changed social geography of voting behaviour in Spain They show conservative and right-wing parties making gains among people who identify as working class or as belonging to lower-income groups, while left-wing parties are gaining ground among higher-income and better-educated groups in large cities. This trend is apparent in recent datasets from the CIS and has been covered by several established media outlets.
According to CIS cross-tabulations on subjective class identity and income groups, recent surveys show a higher proportion of potential support for Partido Popular and Vox among manual workers and lower-income groups. In contrast, support for PSOE and Sumar is above average among more affluent, urban groups. These patterns can be seen in barometers across several survey rounds, but do not allow reliable predictions of specific election results.
Analyses in El País, RTVE and Cadena SER attribute the shifts partly to the issues on the agenda: security, migration, declining purchasing power and the strained housing market are said to resonate particularly with lower-income groups, where the conservative and right-wing camp has succeeded in building trust. In higher-income and better-educated groups in urban centres, meanwhile, progressive narratives on social and cultural issues and the modernisation of public services have gained traction. These interpretations come from media analysis; CIS measures attitudes and preferences but makes no causal claims about people’s motivations.
A methodological point to note: CIS distinguishes between objective characteristics such as occupation and income, and self-reported class identity. The two overlap but do not produce identical pictures. Estimates are also subject to sampling error, while survey waves can be affected by the political news of the time. Trend figures should therefore be read as tendencies, not as evidence of a fixed shift.
This has practical implications for Spain’s political parties. The Partido Popular and Vox are already targeting working-class communities more directly with messages about law and order, taxes and prices. In cities, PSOE and Sumar are seeking to mobilise more highly educated and better-off voters, for example with policies on rents, public services and climate. Whether and how long these patterns will persist will become clear in future elections; the available polling data alone cannot support reliable conclusions on this.
Editor: Phillipe Schmidt-Araguin (Article created with AI assistance).