"I knew it was going to go well, but not that it was going to turn out that well." This is the confession of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, in an informal conversation with the journalists who cover his campaign, in Ciudad Real, where he went after sleeping just three hours after the debate he had on Monday night with Pedro Sánchez.
And that coming out "so well" means, according to the PP leader, that what he has been pursuing since the beginning of the campaign, that is, the useful vote, which is now in Vox, may have seen in him a capable president to stand up to Sánchez, and the only one who can make him stop being president.
For Feijóo, the Vox voters who watched the debate are currently in two situations: "Either thinking of changing the vote, or having already changed the vote", to give it to the PP. The main reason, according to the PP leader, is that Sánchez "is willing to govern losing", and that can only be avoided by concentrating the vote on the popular.
In this regard, Feijóo wants to lower the euphoria that he saw on Monday night at the PP headquarters and yesterday he verified both in the Atocha station, with the people who crossed paths, and in the streets of Ciudad Real, where those who were approached were addressing him as future president. “The elections have not been won. Only one debate has been won –Feijóo stresses–, and the worst is relaxation and euphoria”.
The popular leader will continue with his campaign as he had designed it, with two daily events in different provinces. Nothing is done yet, the PP insist, but they also recognize that this euphoria is going to be an incentive to throw in the rest in the last week of the campaign.
Feijóo's team assures that what the face-to-face on Monday has meant cannot be translated into votes, at least not for now, but it is clear that it represents "a blow to the campaign", a "positive turning point" for the PP, because many considered Feijóo the winner, but feared that he would not be able to govern. Now, according to what they say in Genoa, they know that with him they can win and govern. Feijóo confesses that he does not quite understand what happened to Sánchez in the debate, although those around him believe that he had raised so many expectations, that by not meeting them he has disappointed his people. They saw him "overflowed, disjointed and tremendously a liar."
However, the leader of the PP assures that Sánchez is not finished, and publicly alerts citizens about it. For Sánchez, he said, "the only thing left is for the ballot box to allow him to block the country," as happened in 2019 with Mariano Rajoy. “They may not let us form a government, they may blockade the country”, and all with one intention, “to go back to elections” in which the polls benefit them more than what the polls now predict.
