It will be right after the commercial break. Until then, Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo will have clashed non-stop for 40 minutes in the only face-to-face duel of the campaign, Monday at 10am on Antena 3, La Sexta and Onda Cero, on economics and social policy. It’s an area in which the president is more comfortable on the back of strong jobs and growth data, although the PP chief believes he also has many assets when it comes to appealing to the middle class living under a strong loss of purchasing power.
After the commercial break, the only moment when Sánchez and Feijóo can talk to their advisers – their heads of cabinet will be present: Óscar López with the president and Marta Varela with the opposition leader – it will probably be the most tense and crucial moment: the debate block on the post-election pacts. There are 23 minutes that can define the entire campaign. The two play a lot with each other in this direct duel. Any mistake can be deadly. The leaders of the PSOE and the PP, who are very close to both leaders and who are preparing the debate with them, agree: the pacts are the key to the meeting. That and the tone they both use during the duel.
Feijóo built the election campaign for the 28-M local elections on the PSOE agreements with Bildu, but now the tables have turned and the left has managed to make the PP government pact with Vox the major axis of this election campaign. And Sánchez is using all artillery, according to PSOE sources, to convince viewers that if they vote for the PP, they are not only supporting Feijóo, but that they are appointing Santiago Abascal as vice-president of the government and the extreme right and their Will involve supporters program presented on Friday in the executive branch of a country like Spain, a pioneer in social rights.
Sánchez has at his disposal as dialectical artillery the most brutal phrases from Vox leaders against whom the PP has launched institutional charges, the most controversial decisions from city councils governed by the two parties, or the censorship complaints about a work by Virginia Woolf in a community or to a Disney movie in another because there’s a kissing scene between two women. The PSOE needs its potential voters to visualize that Vox is no longer a diffuse threat, it is no longer the fear of the far right that worked in 2019 and didn’t work after that: now it’s a reality, it already governs with the PP and you begin to see each other’s results. The Socialists have designed a campaign reminiscent of that of 2008, which, in the face of an enormous mobilization from the right – Mariano Rajoy received 10.2 million votes – another, even larger one from the left – José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero achieved 11.2 million an unimaginable record today.
Feijóo, on the other hand, is preparing a series of responses, according to PP sources, to prevent Sánchez dragging him into the vox pit and, above all, to visualize that the alternative is a government backed by the ERC and Bildu.
The two politicians prepare the debate conscientiously because they know that almost the entire election campaign is at stake there. Both teams have plenty of maps, charts and data ready for the leaders to memorize. Sánchez starts with the advantage of having been in government for five years and having all the dates and debates in his head, while Feijóo has been active in national politics and also in opposition for just over a year. In the President’s environment, they trust in this difference and in the mistakes of the PP leader with some data, but also know that he is a tough politician with a lot of experience.
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More important than the numbers and advertising phrases – each candidate receives dozens of them as suggestions from all possible sources – is definitely the tone. And both teams work a lot.
There is a crucial political key. The two fight for a borderline middle space with voices that can switch blocks. According to survey 40dB. For EL PAÍS and Cadena SER, the agreements with Vox and a pre-campaign with many contradictory messages in the PP manage to stop this transfer of votes from the PSOE to the PP, which has reached 9%, but Sánchez needs more than to reverse this trend , to have a chance at the government. “Those are the votes that count the most, the transfers between the two big parties, because they’re worth twice as much.” It’s one of you and one less from the other bloc, and they can accept many MPs. A good part of the campaign is there,” explains one leader.
And for this reason, and despite the fact that the debates in the Senate between Sánchez and Feijóo have been very tough, this time both are very careful about their tone. You must be energetic but not overly aggressive. Sánchez is changing the register in this election campaign, in the interviews he has shown that he is closer, admitting mistakes, seeking complicity with the electorate, who may be upset about some controversial decisions, such as pardoning the prisoners of the process or his pact with the ERC to amend the Penal Code and try to reduce punishment for pro-independence advocates. In those around him, they point out that it will be “correct and respectful” and that he certainly does not underestimate his rival, but trusts that the management of these five years and the economic data will give him arguments to try to disable the anti -sanchismo to which Feijóo will appeal.
According to sources of this party, the leader of the PP will try to paint a different, tougher profile of the president, which is met with strong opposition not only from right-wing but also from more moderate voters. And above all, he will persistently influence Sánchez’s changes of opinion, presenting himself as a moderate ruler who has come to bring about quiet change “without revenge,” as he said this week. But the PSOE boss will also try to point to the other Feijóo, the one who agrees with Vox, the one who speaks of a “tough divorce” to refer to a case of gender violence by the leader of the Ultras in the Valencian community , or also changes his mind: with the pacts with the extreme right, with the dialogue table with the Generalitat – the PP had to qualify an interview with its president in El Periódico de España, in which it said it would stick to it –. And he will also restore decisions Feijóo made in Galicia that contradict his lineage.
While Sánchez interrupted an appearance he was making on Saturday in Plasencia (Cáceres) to focus on the debate, Feijóo is sticking to his agenda and will hold one of the key rallies of the election campaign this Sunday in the Pontevedra bullring. The PP boss will also spend many hours preparing for the duel, his entourage said, but on Saturday he made fun of his rival’s concentration: “Sánchez locked himself in to prepare the debate. He asked us for six, but if he needs four days to prepare each debate, he would need two campaigns,” he boasted from Corrales del Vino (Zamora).
The two teams focus on the tone and the most resonant phrases that will resonate in headlines and talk shows for several days later, but above all they try to question what the rival will do, the possible surprises. And in this part there is a huge elephant in the room, which no one clarifies whether he will come out of, although he has possibilities: Marcial Dorado, the tobacco smuggler who was friends with Feijóo in the late 1990s – at that time PP boss was already in politics – and years later was convicted of drug trafficking.
Sánchez has already raised the matter in a control session in Congress. But he never cited it again and must now decide whether and how to use it as a weapon to prevent it from backfiring. So far, Feijóo has managed to prevent this photo from taking its toll, assuming it was a very old issue and he didn’t know what Dorado was doing at the time.
The goals of the two candidates are very different. Sánchez needs to rouse the growing sense of comeback in the PSOE, convince his potential constituency that a party exists, and for that reason he needs to risk more. Feijóo wants to consolidate his lead and prevent a possible recovery of the left. That’s why he will avoid risks and be more conservative, so much so that he has refused to participate in the rest of the debates. Everything is very prepared and thought out. But when the head-to-head race begins, two are playing and no one can control everything. The campaign can change in these 90 minutes. And with her, a choice seemed settled.
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