"Good vibrations". Pedro Sánchez himself warned his team that he detected a change in elevation, another environment. It was at the rally that he starred in Valencia, before 2,200 supporters, on the last Saturday of the campaign, on July 15, where he appealed to his own history of resistance to encourage them to win "against all odds." The internal tracking of the PSOE reflected, as of that day, "a very important rebound."
The first week of the campaign was greatly hampered by the "fiasco" of the only one-on-one between Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo at Atresmedia, held on July 10, which frustrated all the expectations of the Socialists. "Moral drop", they acknowledged. But little by little, their own successes in the electoral strategy, and the accumulation of errors of the political adversary, as they say, began to turn the tables.
The growth of the PSOE had been constant, but insufficient. And the notable rebound in expectations, the famous "comeback" that until then Sánchez had demanded without success, was forged from that Saturday. In Ferraz they point out that then the discourse began to "curdle" that things, in this legislature, "have been done well", despite the recognized and amended errors, such as the undesired effects of the law of only yes is yes . The fear of the formation of a government of the PP and Vox also began to permeate and caused "a reaction", especially in territories, such as Extremadura, where the alliance of the right with the extreme right was already "palpable", not a mere hypothesis.
The following day, Sunday August 16, Sánchez was the main actor in a rally in Barcelona, in front of 3,000 supporters. Catalonia was also decisive on 23-J. For a long time, they recognize in Ferraz, that the PSC of Salvador Illa had been demonstrating its electoral strength. But they assure that Santiago Abascal's recognition that if Vox came to the government, tension would return to Catalonia, was "devastating". "He endorsed what we had been saying for so long," say the Socialists. Thus, "not so much the fear of the ultra-right, but the fear of losing the policy that this government has carried out in Catalonia" was activated. "The polls have provided a clear endorsement of Sánchez's agenda for dialogue and coexistence, in Catalonia and throughout Spain," they point out. "There was not a vote of punishment for his policy in Catalonia, but rather the contrary," they highlight. The pardons or the penal reform, point out other leaders, were “amortized” on 23-J.
Sánchez assures that he began to perceive a mobilization of the progressive electorate as he had not seen for years. Among the successes of the campaign, Ferraz also highlights the communication strategy, with the segmentation of the electorate. For example, among young people. And they highlight, as concrete successes, having turned around what was an "insult" from the right - "Perro Sanxe" - to transform it into a "reason for pride". "We realized that for young people it was not a pejorative expression, but something positive that we took advantage of in our favor," they acknowledge.
The communication strategy, they point out in Ferraz, sought to "make Sánchez visible" to much larger audiences, or even refractory ones, than those who traditionally gather at a rally to applaud him. From the television program El Hormiguero, to the podcast La Pija y la Quinqui. The "effectiveness" of this strategy, they say, has been demonstrated.
Along with their own successes, in the PSOE the errors of others stand out. "The last week, and part of the previous one, was disastrous for the PP," they say. The slogan "That I vote for you Txapote", not censored by Feijóo, turned against him due to the rejection of victims of terrorism. The PP leader admitted, before the old photo of the yacht, that Marcial Dorado was not a drug trafficker at the time, just a smuggler. And not attending the last debate on RTVE, already on July 19, was an "absolute tactical error", they indicate.
The demoscopic expectation, they warn, ended up being very counterproductive for the PP. “They got carried away, with a certain arrogance, they already took it for granted. But our tracking never gave 160 or 150 seats to the PP, far from it”, they point out. "They never had an absolute majority with Vox, not even in their dreams," they say.
"We have made the best campaign," Sánchez himself settled on July 21, at the rally with which he closed in Getafe, before 4,500 enthusiastic supporters. "We fell and we got up, and we pedaled against the clock and crossed all the flying goals and climbed all the unimaginable ports and we have a few meters left to reach the final sprint," encouraged the PSOE leader.
In this rally at the end of the campaign, in which his voice already showed signs of exhaustion, Sánchez nevertheless failed in two of his electoral forecasts: neither the PSOE was the first political force on 23-J, nor was Sumar the third. The surprise that the polls revealed last Sunday, unthinkable even for a large part of the socialist leadership at that time, is that perhaps he will be able to fulfill his third omen: "There will be four more years of progressive government in Spain."
