by Clifford F. Thies

With a snap election called for November 20th, I thought I should construct a composite tracking poll for Spain. The tracking poll demonstrates a remarkable rebound for the center-right People's Party. Only three years ago, the party finished behind the Socialist Workers Party by 4 points. It now enjoys a double-digit lead over the Socialist Workers Party, and appears poised for an absolute majority in the next Congress of Deputies.

The correlation between the popular vote and the award of seats in the Congress is complicated by the large number of electoral districts, the award of a minimum of two Deputies to each of the fifty provinces, the stated threshold of 3 percent for representation in the Congress, and the number of regional parties. In practice, the two largest parties are awarded more seats than their proportion of the nationwide popular vote. Of the smaller parties, only the left-wing United Left Party of the nationwide parties seems certain to meet the threshold. As a result, the composite tracking poll compares support for the People's Party to support for the Socialist Workers Party (mano a mano, as it were) and to combined support for the Socialist Workers and United Left parties.