Alberto Núñez Feijóo's PP has reaped a new victory this Sunday in the regional elections of Castilla y León after almost four decades in power. Furthermore, it has managed to curb Vox, which has remained below 20% of ballots, a threshold that Santiago Abascal's party had set as a goal. However, the 'populars' have not managed to deal a setback to Pedro Sánchez's PSOE, which adds two more procurators than in 2022 and maintains almost 31% support at the polls.
With 98.90% of the scrutiny completed, the list headed by Alfonso Fernández Mañueco reaches 33 seats, two more than in the previous elections, by raising its support by just over four points to 35.4%. The PSOE comes in second place and also gains two representatives in the Cortes of Castilla y León, with 30.7% of the votes, which represents an advance of 0.73 points compared to four years ago, in a Parliament from which Podemos, IU, and Sumar disappear.
Four years ago, Vox made the big leap by going from 1 to 13 procurators (17.6%). This time its progression has been partially contained: it only adds one more seat and remains at 18.9% of the votes, without reaching the 20% threshold that Abascal's party aspired to in this election.
Vox is once again decisive for the Junta
Despite this brake, Santiago Abascal's formation once again positions itself as an essential actor for governability in Castilla y León. Alfonso Fernández Mañueco will have to negotiate again with Vox if he wants to revalidate the Presidency of the Junta de CyL, as already happened after the regional elections four years ago.
Then, both parties signed their first coalition government which blew up two years later after Santiago Abascal's decision to break all the regional agreements with the PP in July 2024.
Now it remains to be seen if PP and Vox opt again for a joint Executive or if Abascal's party leans towards a parliamentary agreement that allows it to scrutinize from outside the Government's action and the fulfillment of the commitments with Mañueco's team.
Video call between Feijóo and Mañueco and euphoria in Génova
Feijóo held a video call tonight with Fernández Mañueco, whom he congratulated on the PP's result in these elections. In addition, the PP candidate for re-election will attend this Monday the meeting in Madrid of the National Executive Board --the party's highest body between congresses-- which will analyze the election results.
At the national headquarters, in 'Génova', they have openly shown their satisfaction with the outcome of the night, highlighting that the PP does not suffer wear and tear despite chaining 40 years of uninterrupted government in the Junta de Castilla y León. According to the 'populars', tonight Castilla y León "chooses more PP and less left" because the 'populars' are "the party that rises the most in vote percentage while the left recedes".
"Ultimately, in Pedro Sánchez's Spain the right rises and the left falls and the Popular Party continues to accumulate electoral victories without the PSOE having the option to govern in any territory", the same sources highlighted.
The PP has indicated that Mañueco will govern as he has been doing "in recent years", reaching agreements with other parties, given that the "last absolute majority was in 2011 and before the breakdown of bipartisanship". "Therefore nothing changes except that the Popular Party goes up and the left goes down," the same sources have stressed.
In an appearance at the PP headquarters, the general secretary of the PP, Miguel Tellado, has stressed that his party has won in a "resounding" way, surpassing the PSOE "by almost five points" and obtaining "more than double the seats of Vox". "The PP wins and remains as the only party capable of forming a government and the PSOE loses and is left without any option to govern", he emphasized.
Effect on the negotiations in Aragon and Extremadura
The result in Castilla y León directly impacts the open conversations between PP and Vox in Extremadura and Aragón. In Génova, they trust that, after the recount in CyL, negotiations will resume as soon as possible to invest María Guardiola and Jorge Azcón as presidents of Extremadura and Aragón, respectively. "We hope that Vox will now want to advance in those negotiations," Tellado has said.
Feijóo, who has traveled 4,200 kilometers visiting the nine provinces of the community, has focused the last week of the campaign on "exploiting" Vox's 'no' to Guardiola's investiture to reinforce the idea that Abascal's party only seeks "blockage". "He who presents himself to block the alternative to the Government and defraud the citizen, deserves a punishment from the people," emphasized Feijóo at the closing rally in Valladolid.
In fact, in Genoa they believe its vote against Guardiola's investiture has done "damage" to Vox, since, according to 'popular' sources, in the internal trackings of the PP it reached close to 25% of the votes. Apart from that "blockade of a center-right Government", they have alluded to the internal crisis that the formation has suffered these weeks with the expulsion of Javier Ortega Smith and José Ángel Antelo.
The PP improves, but far from its former majorities
In these 2026 elections, the PP improves its results compared to 2022, by going from 31 to 33 seats but once again will have to explore a pact with Vox. This is the third time Mañueco has headed the PP list to lead the Junta de CyL --he ran for the first time in 2019-- and on this occasion he has achieved his best result, although far from the absolute majorities held by Juan Vicente Herrera for 18 years (2001-2019).
The worst result for the 'populars' in a CyL regional election in terms of number of procurators took place in the elections of May 26, 2019, in which the PP garnered 29 seats (31.53% of the votes), far from the absolute majorities they had been obtaining in previous electoral contests.
In fact, in those 2019 elections, the PSOE led by Luis Tudanca won for the first time, obtaining 35 procuradores. Mañueco's coalition pact with the Cs candidate, Francisco Igea, who had obtained 12 seats, allowed the Popular Party to retain the Government of the Junta de CyL.
The current results are far from the absolute majorities of the 90s decade and the first 15 years of this century. If José María Aznar recovered the Government of the Junta in 1987 with 32 seats, from that moment on, the PP would open an ascending line because his successor Juan José Lucas would obtain 43 seats in 1991; 50 seats in 1995; and 48 seats in 1999.
Afterwards, Juan Vicente Herrera would take over, who in 2003 maintained the 48 procuradores for the PP and would repeat that same number of seats in 2007. In 2011, the party reached 53 seats and in 2015, the last time he ran in the elections, Herrera, achieved 42 procuradores (37.73% of the votes), compared to the 25 that Luis Tudanca then obtained.