Spain will hold a snap general election on 29 November 2026, ending eight years of Socialist-led government under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and deciding whether the centre-right People's Party returns to power. Sánchez was campaigning in Tarragona on 7 November, three weeks before polling day, with surveys putting his Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) roughly six to seven points behind the People's Party (PP), and the PP and the far-right Vox party together projected to win a parliamentary majority.

The election was triggered by a single afternoon in parliament. On 2 October, Spain's Congress of Deputies struck down both of the government's emergency housing decree-laws, the first by 178 votes to 172 and the second by 184 to 166. The decrees would have brought in rent protections, stronger safeguards against evictions and tighter rules on tourist rentals. Junts per Catalunya, the Catalan pro-independence party whose support had kept Sánchez in office, joined the PP and Vox in voting them down, despite a last-minute appeal from Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez, who told Junts that 90 per cent of its demands had been incorporated into the texts. Days later, Sánchez dissolved parliament and called the election.

Eight years of fragile majorities

Sánchez first became prime minister in June 2018, after a successful motion of no confidence against conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. In the 2023 general election, PSOE finished second with 121 seats against the PP's 137, but Sánchez still secured a third term by forming a coalition with the left-wing Sumar party and winning parliamentary support from Junts in exchange for a controversial amnesty law for Catalan independence figures prosecuted over the 2017 referendum. That arrangement left him permanently dependent on a party with incompatible political priorities, and the housing vote was the definitive rupture.

The housing crisis itself had been deepening for years. Urban rental markets, particularly in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia, have recorded rent increases of 25 to 40 per cent since 2022, far outstripping wage growth. Weeks before the vote in Congress, the eviction of an elderly Madrid woman by a real estate firm had ignited demonstrations across the country, turning housing affordability into the defining political flashpoint of the autumn.

Corruption verdict weighs on the campaign

No single event has done more damage to PSOE's campaign prospects than the conviction of José Luis Ábalos. Spain's Supreme Court sentenced the former transport minister and former PSOE organisation secretary to 24 years in prison in June 2026 for leading a criminal organisation and committing bribery and influence peddling in the so-called Koldo case, a corruption scandal centred on alleged kickbacks during the Covid-19 pandemic's emergency health-equipment procurement. Under Spain's criminal code, the effective sentence was capped at 16 years and six months. The PP has turned the verdict into campaign ammunition, arguing that it is indecent that taxpayers' money went into the pockets of Socialists while Ábalos awaited the start of his sentence.

The polling picture is stark for the government. The five most recent surveys, conducted between 29 October and 5 November, place the PP between 29.2 and 33.0 per cent, PSOE between 24.6 and 26.9 per cent, and Vox between 18.4 and 19.1 per cent. Seat projections put the PP at roughly 130 seats and Vox at roughly 66, for a combined total of about 196 in the 350-seat Congress, well above the 176 needed for a majority, with PSOE projected at about 100 seats and Sumar at 15 to 20.

Sánchez's position has been further weakened by the Toledo train disaster in the final week of October, a high-speed rail collision near Toledo that killed at least 69 people. Opposition parties have blamed the disaster on infrastructure underinvestment during the PSOE government's tenure, and polling conducted after it shows the PP's lead widening from about 1.4 points at the last general election to about 6.5 points.

What the result would mean for Europe

The warning signs for PSOE came early. Months before the national vote, the party suffered one of its worst-ever regional results in the Andalusian election of 17 May 2026, a region the left had governed for decades. Sánchez has framed 29 November as a binary choice, repeating at campaign rallies that hope will beat regression.

The result matters beyond Spain. If the PP forms a government, the last centre-left administration in a major EU member state would fall. Analysts say a change of government in Madrid could affect EU climate policy, the bloc's support for Ukraine and the succession to European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, who resigns in February 2027. For Sánchez, 29 November will determine whether he remains Spain's great political survivor, or whether it marks the definitive close of his era.