Sanchez's Snap Election Bet Sours as Spain's Left Fumes Over Housing

Spain's left took it to the streets. A general strike on Wednesday, called by trade unions and backed by housing activists, drew more than 3 million people, according to the unions — the culmination of protests set off by the September eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal. Sanchez faces voters on November 29, and the noise is not dying down.

The numbers aren't moving his way. Polls show support for his Socialists hovering around the 26-29 per cent recorded before he called the election, and an alliance between the conservative People's Party and the hardline nationalist Vox is seen as the most likely next government. Two deadly train crashes, corruption convictions in Sanchez's inner circle and a rush of migrants into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta have all dented his standing.

Sanchez is running hard against that prospect, branding a PP-Vox administration a threat to social rights won over decades and calling their 'project of regression' akin to the politics of Donald Trump, Argentina's Javier Milei and former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro. 'You do not advance by travelling to the past,' he told supporters at his first official campaign rally. At an earlier rally he framed the moment as generational: 'Every generation has its own struggle — for us, that struggle is housing.'

Plenty on his own side aren't buying it. Mario Aguiriano, spokesperson for the Socialist Movement that gained traction in Spain's protest encampments, called Sanchez's 'self-styled progressive government ... a government of slower regression,' asking: 'Is the enemy who kills you slowly with poison preferable to the enemy who kills you with a chainsaw?' Lawmaker Tesh Sidi, who sits to Sanchez's left, said the Socialists 'play in elections and campaigns at being the Che Guevara of the left — but progressive voters aren't going to be fooled,' urging them toward her Broad Front party. Talks among left-of-centre parties to form a united platform collapsed last month, leaving voters to choose between the Socialists, abstention or a smaller party that could end up letting the right in.

On the ground, the mood is raw. 'We're really tired of so many things,' said Maria Torrena Perez, a 40-year-old primary school teacher at a Madrid march on Wednesday night, listing decent housing, public education and healthcare as unmet demands. 'Voting isn't enough,' said Alicia del Rio of the Tenants Union, which called the strike — though she added it was vital not to 'hand fascism a seat.'

Sanchez is leaning on a roulette phrase — 'all on red' — to chase tactical votes in provinces with only a handful of seats, where the electoral system squeezes smaller parties. Political consultant Ivan Redondo, a former campaign strategist for Sanchez, told reporters that with more than a million voters still undecided, getting four in five left-leaning Spaniards in small provinces behind the Socialists could turn things around. But Vox is peeling off some disillusioned left-wing voters with its talk of defending hard work and Spanish culture, according to Paco Camas of pollster Ipsos. Podemos, which pulled over a quarter of voters at its 2015 peak and now sits at 1.9 per cent in the most recent polls, refused to join the Broad Front or ally with the incumbents. Its secretary-general Ione Belarra quipped that the Socialists' tactical-vote pitch would only be tactical for those seeking to benefit landlords, welcome 'vulture funds' or appease Israel. 'They will swallow you up if they get the chance,' said the party's lead candidate, Irene Montero.