Housing Protests, a Condemned Minister and a Fractured Coalition: Why Spain Votes Nov. 29

Spain’s Prime Minister and Secretary-General of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) Pedro Sanchez applauds during a pre-election campaign event in Tarragona on November 7, 2026. Spain is due to hold a snap general election on November 29, following eight years of Socialist-led government under Sanchez.
Photo by Manaure QUINTERO / AFP via Getty Images

The collapse arrived in the span of a single afternoon. On October 2, 2026, Spain’s Congress of Deputies struck down both emergency housing decree-laws put forward by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez‘s minority government—the first by 178 votes to 172, the second by 184 to 166—eliminating rent protections, anti-eviction measures, and tourist-rental regulations in a single session. Three days later, Sánchez stepped before cameras and announced what many in his Socialist Party (PSOE) had already begun to anticipate: a snap general election for November 29, 2026.

The Housing Vote That Broke the Legislature

The legislative defeat was the final blow to a government already stretched to its limits. Weeks before the vote, the eviction of an elderly Madrid woman by a real estate firm had ignited demonstrations across the country, turning housing affordability into the defining political flashpoint of the autumn. Sánchez moved quickly, pushing two emergency decree-laws through cabinet—only to watch them rejected in Congress after Junts per Catalunya joined the People’s Party (PP) and Vox in opposition. Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez made a last-minute appeal from the floor, telling Junts that 90% of their demands had been incorporated into the texts. The Catalan pro-independence bloc held its no vote regardless.

Spain’s housing crisis had been deepening for years, compounded in 2026 by a migration surge in Ceuta that inflamed public debate at the same moment renters in Madrid and Barcelona were taking to the streets. Together, the two crises created a pressure cooker the government was unable to contain.

Eight Years in Power, With Deep Scars

Sánchez first arrived at La Moncloa in June 2018, following a successful motion of no confidence against conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. What came next was nearly a decade of governing on the edge: narrow electoral victories, internal party rifts, and coalitions stitched together from an improbable array of regional and nationalist parties.

After finishing second in the 2023 general election—where PSOE won 121 seats against the PP’s 137—Sánchez nonetheless secured a third term. He formed a coalition government with the left-wing Sumar party and obtained parliamentary support from Junts per Catalunya in exchange for a controversial amnesty law for Catalan independence figures. That arrangement gave him the investiture votes he needed—but it also left him permanently dependent on a party with incompatible political priorities. Each time Junts pulled back its support, the government ground to a halt. The housing vote was the definitive rupture.

The Corruption Verdict That Defined the Race

No single event did more damage to PSOE’s campaign prospects than the conviction of José Luis Ábalos. Spain’s Supreme Court sentenced the former Transport Minister and former PSOE organization secretary to 24 years in prison in June 2026 for leading a criminal organization and committing bribery and influence peddling in the so-called Koldo Case—a corruption scandal centered on alleged kickbacks during the COVID-19 pandemic’s emergency health-equipment procurement. Under Spain’s criminal code, the effective sentence was capped at 16 years and six months.

The PP wasted no time turning the verdict into campaign ammunition, arguing that “it is indecent that taxpayers’ money went into the pockets of Socialists” while Ábalos awaited the start of his sentence.

What the Polls Actually Show

Polling aggregates paint a picture less favorable to PSOE than the government’s most optimistic readings suggest. While a survey by SW Demoscopia for La Séptima placed PSOE at 29.8% against PP’s 29.1%—near statistical parity—that result was an outlier. The broader average across multiple polling firms conducted through September and October 2026 showed PP leading by approximately six to seven percentage points, with projections placing PP and Vox together at roughly 200 of 350 congressional seats—well above the 176-seat majority threshold.

Sánchez’s core challenge is not winning the most votes—it is assembling a governing coalition in a parliament where his former Junts allies have firmly planted themselves in the opposition camp.

Andalusia Sent the Warning First

Months before the national vote, the PSOE suffered one of its worst-ever regional results in the May 17, 2026 Andalusian election—a region the left had governed for decades. PP’s Juan Manuel Moreno retained power decisively, and analysts read the outcome as a thermometer of a left-wing electorate that had grown disillusioned: demobilized, disenchanted, and in many cases willing to stay home rather than cast a ballot for a Socialist party they no longer recognized as their own.

A Binary Bet With Uncertain Odds

Sánchez has framed November 29 as a binary choice between his progressive vision and what he characterizes as regression under a PP-Vox alliance. “Hope will beat regression on November 29,” he has repeated at campaign rallies, reaching for the same polarization playbook that served him in 2019 and 2023.

The difference this time is the weight he carries into the ballot box: eight years of governing, a legislative record fractured by the loss of key allies, an economy that has yet to solve the housing affordability crisis, and a former party lieutenant now heading to prison. A survey by SocioMétrica conducted in May 2026 found that 74.3% of Spaniards wanted early elections—a figure that captured the depth of the country’s exhaustion with political deadlock.

The politician who survived his own resignation in 2016, who rebuilt from opposition and repeatedly forged majorities where none seemed possible, now needs his most improbable political resurrection yet. November 29 will determine whether Sánchez remains Spain’s great political survivor—or whether it marks the definitive close of his era.