Indeed, the latest polling from El País (conducted prior to the elections being called) shows the conservative Partido Popular (PP) and far-right Vox on a combined 50 percent of the vote compared to 36 percent for the broad-left bloc, with the remaining votes largely going to regional parties and a further two percent for the fringe alt-right Se Acabó La Fiesta (“The Party Is Over”). Vox looks likely to be the major beneficiary of the November 29 election, jumping from 12.4 percent of the vote in 2023 to 18.4 in the El País poll.

In recent months, this far-right party has continued to gain ground against a backdrop that, until the housing protests, had been dominated by the fallout from the mass influx of migrants to Ceuta this summer. The dramatic images, late this July, of an estimated 72,000 people streaming in from Morocco to Spain’s north African exclave were immediately seized upon by Vox and its media allies as they imposed a narrative of invasion and national betrayal across the broader right-wing bloc.

In this respect, the election campaign looks set to largely play out around two competing frames: an anti-migrant narrative seeking to stoke further moral panic over Ceuta, and a class-based one targeting landlordism and housing speculation. Vox leader Santiago Abascal set out on Monday the three conditions for a right-wing coalition government with the PP, insisting it accept its policies of “national priority,” i.e., giving Spaniards preferential access to public services and welfare benefits, deregulation, and forced “remigration.” Furthermore, with at least ten thousand migrants still in Ceuta and the tiny exclave’s resources under considerable strain, the unresolved crisis remains a flash point the far right is likely to further exploit during the campaign.

Yet with the housing protests reaching new heights over the weekend, and with Spain’s two main trade unions agreeing to a one-day general strike for early November in support of their demands, the Right may struggle to shift the focus away from housing in the weeks before polling day. For Sánchez and his left-wing coalition partner Sumar, however, turning this opening into electoral support requires winning back voters demoralized by their grueling second term in office, which has failed to deliver the kind of substantive social policies seen in its first term. The coalition government’s dependence on parties outside the Left for its parliamentary majority since 2023 has blocked much of its reform agenda, and PSOE corruption scandals have only compounded voter frustration. Meanwhile, its principled stands against the genocide in Gaza and the US-Israeli war on Iran have provided only intermittent political momentum.

As a social democratic politician whose instincts were honed through a near decade-long battle to hold off Podemos’s left-populist challenge, Sánchez is the center-left leader in Europe most attuned to the need to represent and mobilize rather than simply retreat behind claims of responsible governance. In his address to announce the early election, he framed his decision as a bid for “a much broader, progressive majority with which to bring the elites to heel. . . .  and continue transforming Spain.”

Sánchez deployed this type of anti-elite rhetoric earlier this year against what he described as “the techno oligarchs” and relished online confrontations with Elon Musk. Now it is being extended to also confront the vulture funds and large landlords. Sánchez is adept at projecting moral conviction, no matter the contradictions of his own record. The test now is whether he can convince broadly left-wing voters that naming these enemies signals a new willingness to push through reforms that challenge their power. Even in the coalition’s first term, when it had a more favorable majority, his party operated as a constant break on his partners’ demands for comprehensive rent controls.

In this respect, the housing protests should, in theory, represent a particular opportunity for the radical left. Yet after six years as junior coalition partner to PSOE, it is bearing the brunt of progressive voters’ disillusionment. Unlike in the 2023 election, when Sumar’s Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz could run on her record of pro-worker labor reforms and cost-of-living measures, the radical left has very little to show for having remained at cabinet for the last three years.

Now, eight weeks out from polling day, the radical left lacks both a clear leader and an agreed electoral formula that can bring together Sumar, Podemos, and various regional left-wing parties after years of debilitating factional conflict. As before the 2023 elections, it faces a race against the clock to negotiate a viable arrangement before the October 16 deadline.

The candidate with the broadest appeal across the rival factions, Minister of Social Rights Pablo Bustinduy, has repeatedly ruled himself out, including in an interview just last weekend in El País. Choosing another Sumar figure already in government, such as Minister of Health Mónica García or Minister of Culture Ernest Urtasun, risks tying the new alliance too closely to Sánchez and the coalition’s record, making it harder to offer disillusioned left-wing voters a distinct political alternative. In this respect, a ticket led by former Barcelona mayor Ada Colau could offer a different profile, combining her roots in housing activism and evident political charisma to reengage the Left’s base.

Colau has made her candidacy dependent on the negotiation of a “truly broad” left front that would also include Podemos. Yet securing joint lists remains difficult, particularly in the capital, where Más Madrid (one of the leading forces in the old Sumar alliance) has been the most resistant to both an agreement with Podemos and its proposal for open primaries. Given the tight time frame, organizing such primaries looks difficult. On Wednesday, Más Madrid publicly backed Colau as the national candidate for the first time, but as a quid pro quo in which it insisted it get the first four spots on the Madrid list, which would essentially exclude Podemos from securing representation there.

Even as these negotiations seem stuck, a last-minute move by the popular Catalan left-nationalist Gabriel Rufián cannot be ruled out as an alternative to Colau topping the list. One of the few left-wing politicians able to break through with younger voters and compete with the Right on social media platforms like TikTok, he is once again flirting with the idea of breaking with his party Esquerra Republicana to front the Left’s list. That would be quite the leap for a figure who first became a household name nearly a decade ago as a leading voice of the 2017 Catalan independence referendum — underscoring just how chaotic the Spanish left’s position is as it seeks to put together a viable candidacy.

In polling, Sumar is currently on 5.6 percent and Podemos 2.7 — down from their combined 12.3 percent vote in 2023. Any hope of an upset, again holding off the right-wing bloc, would require a surge back to these past scores, and quickly. The stakes of overcoming those divisions are clear. As political strategist Iván Redondo argues, Sánchez has “no chance whatsoever of forming a government” if the combined PP-Vox vote exceeds 47 percent, whereas pushing it a little below that would reopen the possibility of a progressive majority perhaps again reliant on hardly-left-wing regional parties.

This is a daunting task even as the housing movement has given the Left a chance to fight the election on favorable ground. The right-wing bloc’s lead is currently double what it was in 2023, when the left-wing coalition parties pulled off a major upset to deny the PP-Vox duo the chance to govern. Without a dramatic shift in the coming weeks, Spain’s run as an outlier in Europe looks set to end.