The CIS estimates seem to have turned the kitchen of the public institute into an alchemy laboratory and the analyst chefs into authentic magicians. Four points of advantage for the PSOE based on an advantage of less than two points in direct suffrage against the PP could seem reasonable in a poll in which the memory of the vote did not register a very clear overrepresentation of the socialist voter, in parallel to a underrepresentation of the electorate of the Popular Party and Vox, as occurs in the October barometer. Now, does that mean that the CIS has no reason to put the Socialists ahead?
The answer requires leaving aside the memory of voting - a parameter subjected to the traps of the subconscious and on which the experts do not quite agree - and take a look at other aspects of the survey. For example, the direct vote through the different groups that make up the sample: sex, age, etc. And there the CIS survey detects some changes in favor of the PSOE. The first, of course, is the fact that the correlation is reversed compared to September, when the advantage fell on the side of the PP.
However, in October the PSOE has also recovered its traditional advantage among women. If in September it was only one point above the PP, now it is close to six points. And, in addition, it has significantly reduced the advantage of the popular or has extended its own in almost all age groups (from two to seven points among those under 24 years of age or from -2 to 8 in the range of 55 to 64 years).
It is true that the PSOE continues to record levels of voter loyalty lower than those of the PP, with twice as many undecided voters and 6% of former socialist voters who now announce their support for the popular ones (although last July that rate was close to 10 %). But, at the same time, the Socialist Party is the state-level formation with the highest percentage of followers who always support the same initials: up to twelve points more than the PP. And among those who have not decided to vote, sympathy for the PSOE is twice that of the PP.
In addition, the willingness to go to the polls is not very different between the voters of the two main forces: 81% of socialist voters say they will go to vote "with complete certainty", compared to 84% of PP supporters . And another parameter that has changed for the benefit of the PSOE is that relating to the party that citizens "consider closest to their own ideas."
In this area, the advantage of the Socialist Party has gone from less than four points in September to more than seven (26.6% compared to 19.5%) in October. And what is striking is that, in the parameter of closeness, the PSOE imposes itself very clearly (with margins of up to twelve points) in all age groups, except among those over 74 years of age. And with a ten-point advantage among women.
Finally, it could be thought that the survey has been conditioned by the conjunctural impact of the presentation of the budgets with "the highest social spending in history and a revaluation of pensions of around 8.5%". However, the October barometer includes a more structural issue that shows the difficulties that the center-right is going to have in imposing its narrative on fiscal policy: citizen support for the progressivity and territorial homogeneity of taxes.
For example, when faced with the question of whether "the taxes that we Spaniards pay should be the same throughout the territory", the positive answers account for more than 71% of those consulted. And the most significant thing: 67% of PP voters and 78% of Vox voters share that idea. Likewise, the "agreement with the criterion that those who have more wealth pay more taxes" reaches more than 80% of citizens. The problem for certain tax reductions that the PP has been applying is that almost 60% of its voters (and 57% of those of Vox) share the criterion that whoever earns the most pays more. Of course, the electoral impact of this divergence is currently unknown.
