The Popular Party wanted to start the race towards the 29-N by showing muscle in Madrid, and the first mobilization test has left the party satisfied. Alberto Núñez Feijóo starred this Saturday in his first major pre-campaign event accompanied by the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and the mayor of the capital, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, in an Auditorio Norte of IFEMA that has become too small to accommodate all the supporters who traveled there. The venue reached its full capacity, and part of the audience could not access the interior, according to sources from the organization, an image that Genoa interprets as a sign that its bases are eagerly facing a campaign that began abruptly after Pedro Sánchez announced last Monday the electoral advance.
The atmosphere has been precisely one of the main messages that the PP wanted to project: mobilization, internal unity, and a sense of campaign kickoff. Militants and supporters have arrived from different points in Spain, and several territorial organizations had prepared buses to travel to Madrid. The PP of Cuenca, for example, organized coaches from four municipalities in the province, while the Valencian leadership also provided transportation for members and supporters and announced a large delegation headed by the president of the Generalitat, Juanfran Pérez Llorca.
Madrid, showcase for Feijóo's first major event
The choice of the capital is not casual. Feijóo will lead the PP's candidacy for Congress in Madrid, and the national leadership wanted his first major rally to bring together the three main popular figures in the region: the candidate himself, Ayuso, and Almeida. It is also the second time this week that Feijóo shares an organic stage with the Madrid president, after attending the Autonomous Directive Board of the PP of Madrid a few hours after the electoral advance was announced on Monday.
Madrid is also one of the main electoral bastions of the party. Ayuso governs the Community with an absolute majority and Almeida also retains an absolute majority in the City Council, so Génova intends to use the strength of the Madrid organization as one of the engines of a campaign that will take Feijóo through all the autonomous communities. The formation has prepared a particularly intense agenda for the next seven weeks and has asked its territorial structures for a complete mobilization until the polls.
The full house this Saturday fits with that objective. The PP considers the event a success in attendance, both for having filled the venue and for the presence of attendees who could not enter. That photograph does not allow for extrapolating the result of an election by itself, but it does serve the party to measure the mobilization capacity of its membership in the first weekend of a pre-campaign that is expected to be particularly intense.
"Finally," the message with which the PP enters the campaign
The popular pre-campaign has revolved since Monday around two words: "Finally". The PP deployed that same day a large banner at its national headquarters after Sánchez announced the elections for November 29, and Feijóo repeatedly used the expression during his first appearance. "Finally Spain will say what it thinks, finally the majority will speak again. Finally, the Spaniards will decide," he stated then.
The strategy seeks to present the elections as the moment to close Sánchez's stage and open a change of Government. Feijóo has framed the appointment of 29-N as something that, according to his speech, transcends conventional alternation and has spoken of a "national reconstruction" focused on institutions, family economy, housing, and coexistence. These are the axes with which the popular candidate intends to build his campaign, along with issues such as corruption, immigration, and the situation in Ceuta.
The act of IFEMA also allows Feijóo to stage unity with Ayuso after a first week of pre-campaign marked by the internal debate provoked by the statements of the Madrid president about the mail-in voting. Ayuso had recommended voting in person and had expressed doubts about the system, while the national leadership began to mark distances before Feijóo ended up announcing that the PP will request "additional measures" from the Central Electoral Board and differentiated between his confidence in the employees of Correos and his doubts about some officials of the public company.
Ayuso and Almeida, two fundamental pieces of the campaign
Ayuso's presence has a special importance. The Madrid president is one of the main electoral assets of the PP and Génova wants to count on her during the campaign, although Feijóo has insisted that he is the candidate for the Presidency. Ayuso herself reminded this week by asking for support for the national leader and presenting the elections as a choice between continuity and change.
Almeida completes the Madrid picture. The mayor, who also governs the capital with an absolute majority, brings to the event the municipal structure of the PP and reinforces the image of coordination between Génova, Puerta del Sol, and Cibeles. The three have already shared numerous events in Madrid over the last few years, but the meeting this Saturday has a different significance: it is the first of a national campaign with a fixed electoral date and with Feijóo once again aspiring to reach La Moncloa.
The popular leadership wants the energy of the event not to stay at IFEMA. The prior mobilization had already reached different provinces: territorial organizations like that of Cuenca announced buses from Cuenca capital, Motilla del Palancar, Tarancón, and San Clemente, and the PPCV did the same to transport supporters from the Comunitat Valenciana. That territorial machinery will be one of the central elements of the coming weeks.
Feijóo against Sánchez: Madrid against Dos Hermanas
The start of the pre-campaign also leaves an image of parallel campaigns. While Feijóo, Ayuso, and Almeida meet in Madrid, Pedro Sánchez has chosen Dos Hermanas, one of the historically most symbolic municipalities for Andalusian socialism, to star in his first rally alongside María Jesús Montero. The two major parties have thus sought territories of strong symbolic weight to begin the race to the polls.
The contrast had been expressly sought by the PP since both events were announced. Génova highlighted that Feijóo would start in Madrid, where the popular party governs with an absolute majority in the Community and the City Council, while Sánchez would opt for Andalusia, a community governed for decades by the PSOE until the loss of the Junta in 2018.
The pre-campaign thus enters a fully electoral phase at 50 days until the general elections on November 29. Feijóo arrives after having spent this week in Ceuta, where he placed the migratory crisis among his priorities, and after having gathered the National Executive Board to launch the electoral committee. The organization has already prepared a calendar that aims to take him throughout Spain.
A first thermometer of mobilization
Beyond the speeches, the main message that the PP takes from IFEMA is that of attendance. The full auditorium, the people who were left outside, and the organized arrival of supporters from different territories allow the popular party to present the debut as a success of mobilization. Inside, the atmosphere of applause and support for the three leaders has shown activated bases when there is still more than a month and a half left to vote.
The challenge for Feijóo will be to now transfer that internal mobilization capacity to the entire electorate. A full rally measures the enthusiasm of those who are already close to the party, but it does not anticipate by itself the result of 29-N. For the PP, however, it was important to start the pre-campaign by conveying precisely that image: a party eager for the campaign, mobilized territorial structures, and Feijóo, Ayuso, and Almeida together on stage to sound the starting gun for the electoral battle.