General elections survey: the PSOE leads over the PP, but Vox leads among voters aged 30 to 44 years

The official call for the general elections on November 29, 2026 is already fully formalized and the processing is not in the preparatory phase, but in the phase of execution of the electoral process. The Government has made the political decision, the royal decree dissolving the Cortes and calling the elections has been issued and published, and the different deadlines of the electoral calendar are underway.

1. Legal act of the call and formal situation

The legal basis of the call is Royal Decree 806/2026, of October 5, which dissolves the Congress of Deputies and the Senate elected in 2023 and calls new elections to both Chambers for Sunday, November 29, 2026. This royal decree was approved by the Council of Ministers and published in the Official State Gazette on October 6, 2026, the day it came into effect.

Before publication, the Prime Minister announced the decision in an institutional statement at La Moncloa, explaining that he would convene an extraordinary Council of Ministers to agree on the dissolution of the Cortes and the electoral call, in accordance with the deadlines set by the Constitution and the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime (LOREG). That announcement can be seen on the Moncloa website:
Pedro Sánchez's statement.

With the publication of the royal decree in the BOE, the call ceases to be a mere announced political decision and becomes a fully effective normative provision, which dissolves the Chambers and activates the electoral calendar. Several media and institutional notes summarize this moment; for example, the Congress explains the content and consequences of the decree in a press release:
Congress note on the November 29 elections.

2. Specific phase in which the call is

From a legal-procedural point of view, three moments can be distinguished:

• Preliminary or announcement phase: declaration by the president, consultation with the King, and announcement that elections will be called on a certain date.
• Formalization phase: deliberation in the Council of Ministers, signing of the royal decree by the King and the president, and publication in the BOE.
• Execution phase of the electoral process: once the decree is published, the deadlines of the LOREG begin to run (census, candidacies, campaign, postal voting, etc.).

At the current moment, as of October 13, 2026, the call is already in the execution phase:

• The General Courts are dissolved and ordinary legislative activity in the Congress and Senate has been interrupted.
• The electoral period has opened: publication in the BOE has activated the deadlines to register coalitions, submit lists, and organize the administrative device.
• Procedures such as postal voting can already be exercised, as reflected in Demócrata's information on the November 29 calendar:
  key dates for postal voting.

3. Electoral calendar already set

The call decree and official notes detail the basic calendar:

• November 29, 2026: election day for the Congress and the Senate.
• Electoral campaign: 15 days long; it will start at 00:00 on Friday, November 13 and end at 24:00 on Friday, November 27.
• Reflection day: Saturday, November 28.
• Constitution of the new Cortes: the decree and institutional communication set the constitutive session of the Congress and Senate for December 23, 2026 at 10:00, within the maximum period allowed by the Constitution.

At the same time, the National Institute of Statistics has released census data and the operational procedures to participate, which is additional proof that the process is fully underway. According to the INE, 38.7 million voters will be able to vote, including residents abroad:
INE note on the November 29 elections.

4. Conclusion: what it means for your question

If the question is "at what phase is" the processing of the call, the answer is that the decisive step — the approval and publication of the royal decree calling the elections — has already taken place. No additional procedure is missing for the November 29 elections to be official: the date is firm and binding, and what is currently underway are the phases proper to the organization and development of the electoral process (census, candidacies, campaign, postal voting, etc.), which will culminate with the constitution of the new Cortes in December.

According to the Federal Statutes of the PSOE approved at the 41st Federal Congress, the position is called Presidency of the PSOE and its competencies are fundamentally of institutional representation and formal direction of meetings, not of autonomous political decision-making. The key regulation is found in article 35.1, complemented by the provisions that define the role of the Federal Executive Commission (CEF) and the Federal Committee.

1. Official representation of the party

Article 35.1 of the Federal Statutes establishes that the Presidency of the PSOE holds the official representation of the Party. This means:

• It is the figure that institutionally embodies the PSOE at the federal level: official acts, protocol relations with other political, social or institutional organizations, and relevant party ceremonies.
• This representation is of an organic and symbolic nature: it projects the party's image outward, without replacing the political competencies that the statutes assign to collegiate bodies such as the Federal Committee or the Federal Executive Commission.

In practice, this function places the Presidency as a protocol reference when the party participates in high-level events, federal congresses, or acts in which the PSOE appears as an organized political subject.

2. Presidency and moderation of the Federal Executive Commission

The same article 35.1 assigns the Presidency the competence to preside over and moderate the meetings of the Federal Executive Commission. Several specific functions derive from this:

• Formally direct the sessions of the CEF: open and close meetings, give the floor, order the speaking turns, and ensure respect for internal operating rules.
• Moderate debates: facilitate that different positions within the Executive can be expressed, channel discussions, and contribute to orderly conclusions of deliberations.
• Ensure that meetings are conducted according to the Statutes and the Development Regulations, without assuming the final decision, which corresponds to the collegiate body.

It is important to emphasize that the CEF, according to article 31 of the Statutes, is the body that directs and executes the party's policy, organizes its internal life, promotes political action, and develops the resolutions of the Congress and the Federal Committee. The Presidency does not replace this collegiate competence: the function assigned by the Statutes is to preside and moderate, not to decide unilaterally.

3. Presidency of official acts organized by the CEF

Article 35.1 also indicates that the Presidency of the PSOE presides over official acts organized by the Federal Executive Commission. This function has mainly a protocol content:

• Lead the official acts of the party promoted by the CEF (presentations, commemorations, institutional meetings, etc.).
• Represent the party in those acts as the highest protocol authority, unless the bodies themselves decide otherwise in specific cases.

Again, this is a competence linked to image and representation, not to the autonomous setting of the PSOE's political line.

4. Relationship with other bodies: limits of the position

The Statutes clearly delimit that the main political and organizational decisions of the party are not concentrated in the Presidency, but in:

• The Federal Committee, defined as the highest body between congresses, reserved for competencies such as setting the general political orientation, approving strategic documents, and making major decisions about the party's internal life.
• The Federal Executive Commission itself, which article 31 configures as the body responsible for applying and directing PSOE policy, managing the federal organization, approving initiatives, and resolving day-to-day political and organizational matters.

The competencies with greater political content — for example, defining the party's strategy between congresses, approving the state electoral program, or supervising the Government's action when socialist — are attributed by the Statutes to the Federal Committee and the CEF, not to the Presidency individually.

5. Summary

In short, according to the Federal Statutes of the PSOE (especially article 35.1 and article 31), the president of the PSOE:

• Officially represents the party at the federal level.
• Presides over and moderates the meetings of the Federal Executive Commission.
• Presides over official acts organized by the CEF.

These competencies are mainly representative and related to leading bodies, while the political and decision-making content is set, according to the Statutes, by the party's collegiate bodies.

Vox obtained 33 seats in the last general elections held in Spain, those of July 23, 2023 (the well-known 23J). That was the representation it achieved in the Congress of Deputies after that electoral process.

According to the subsequent analysis of results cited by the newspaper Demócrata based on official data and the Electoral Board, the basic distribution of seats in the 23J Congress was as follows: the PP obtained 137 seats, the PSOE 121, Vox 33, and Sumar 31. The sum of the right-wing bloc formed by PP and Vox thus rose to 170 deputies, falling six short of the absolute majority set at 176.

That result meant a setback for Vox compared to its peak in November 2019, when it reached 52 deputies, but it also consolidated it as the third nationwide force in number of seats. In terms of vote percentage, different subsequent analyses agree in placing Vox around 12.4 % of valid votes cast nationally in 2023, a figure consistent with those 33 seats within the framework of the Spanish electoral system.

Demoscopic literature and electoral analysis after 23J recurrently use this figure of 33 seats as a reference. Various polls published between 2024 and 2026, collected by Demócrata from firms such as Sigma Dos, NC Report, GAD3, Celeste-Tel, 40dB, or the DYM Institute, compare their vote projections with "the result of the 2023 general elections, when Vox obtained 33 deputies and around 12.4 % of the votes." This repetition in independent sources reinforces the robustness of the data.

In those studies, the starting point is always the same: the 23J is taken as a "snapshot" of a Congress with 33 seats for Vox and scenarios are projected in which Santiago Abascal's formation would gain or lose representation. Many of those polls agree in pointing out that, from that base, Vox experiences an upward trend during the legislature, with estimates that lead it to double or almost double those 33 seats in simulations of new general elections. But, in all cases, the historical starting data remains the same: 33 deputies.

From the parliamentary arithmetic point of view of 23J, those 33 seats had several implications:

• They prevented the PP–Vox sum from reaching an absolute majority on its own (170 versus 176).
• They kept Vox as an essential partner in any right-wing government hypothesis, given the gap between the PP and the absolute majority.
• They contributed to a distribution of power in the Congress in which nationalist and separatist parties, together with Sumar, were decisive for the investiture and subsequent governability.

Comparative analyses also emphasize that this result of 33 deputies occurred in a context of strong electoral mobilization and strategic voting against the possibility of a PP–Vox coalition government. The poll aggregators reviewed by Demócrata show that, in the months before 23J, some projections placed Vox at higher seat figures; the final result was therefore somewhat worse than several polls anticipated.

In summary, it can be said that in the last general elections actually held in Spain (July 23, 2023), Vox obtained 33 seats in the Congress of Deputies, with around 12.4 % of the vote, remaining as the third nationwide force and a key piece in the configuration of majorities, but without its alliance with the PP reaching the absolute majority.