The political earthquake that awaits us in the Balearic Islands due to the explosion of Vox
Since polls have become an essential part of party tactics—properly presented by media outlets aligned with each party—the successive waves of published polls form a jungle of data from which it is sometimes difficult to extract anything meaningful. However, because polling firms do their job well—most of them, at least—they provide highly relevant information, regardless of how the polls are presented by the leading publications of each political camp.
The most important information for analysis is usually the evolution of popular support for a political bloc or a specific party over a series of different periods. A single poll is useless. On the other hand, if we have a sufficient number of polls over a sufficient period of time, we can get a reasonably accurate idea of what might be coming. This is what is most useful for the analyst, who will care about as much as a radish whether or not they accurately reflect the potential impact on the political landscape in terms of seats. The essential thing is the deep currents of voting intention that they reveal.
The previous explanation serves to argue that what Heredad is now doing, from the avalanche of polls they've been publishing for over two years, isn't whether the right-wing bloc will win more or fewer seats—that it will win is quite clear, and that it will do so with a sufficient margin over the left as well—the other thing is whether, after that, the other thing is whether, after that, the other thing is whether, after that, the spectacular rise of Vox. This is the novelty compared to any past stage. And it threatens to inaugurate a new, unknown one with sinister undertones. Throughout the country and in our region, possibly even more intensely.
Intense and rapid rise
The fear is justified by how much their voting intention has grown. Vox went from 11%-12.5% during the 2023 electoral cycle –the differences depended on the elections in the Valencian Parliament (Corts) or in the different autonomous communities outside the Balearic Islands– to an average of 13.6% at the end of December 2024 –according to the comparative study by Key Data–, which could be considered a positive trend. However, the real novelty came throughout the past year, with a much more intense and rapid progression.
The growth has been so significant that the polls published this January place it between 17% and 18% in the different elections –the regional elections that must be held soon: Aragon (February) and Castile and León (March); And the general elections, which have no date set—if confirmed, would mean, on the one hand, that the PP would not have an absolute majority and would be forced to form a coalition with the far-right from a much weaker position, and on the other hand, that the right-wing bloc would be at levels that would represent a kind of shock. In the Balearic Islands, support for the far-right party was 13.9% in May three years ago, while in the July general elections it was 15.2%. That is: a positive domestic differential—in relation to its national average—between a minimum of 2.7 percentage points and a maximum of 3.2. Based on these figures, the reader can imagine the vote that Vox could receive in the next Balearic elections if the polls now indicate that it has already reached at least 17% on average across the country.
Everyone senses that the left will suffer a disaster on all fronts
Everyone senses that the left will suffer a disaster across the board. But in the Balearic Islands, it could be worse, taking on the characteristics of an earthquake of unprecedented magnitude, with easily predictable consequences.
What the polls indicate is not simply a new electoral context, but something far more significant: the explosion of such high support for an anti-establishment, far-right force that it could either become the obstacle preventing any stability or determine a new PP government willing to implement a second round of radical policies that it didn't need to satisfy in 2023, paying particular attention to those related to the 'culture war,' immigration, and those aimed at further weakening the Catalan language.
It's almost pointless to mention the nonexistent possibility of the left winning the upcoming regional elections. The most significant aspect of the current mood is the calls for unity—the usual ones from the PCE/IU/Sumar coalition—that emerge when a catastrophe at the polls is feared. No progressive leader believes anymore that the combined Balearic leftist parties can reach the required 30 seats. And the relevant point wouldn't be the number of seats, but rather, and more importantly, the profound implications if Vox were to reach or exceed 20%, meaning it would be siphoning off a significant number of formerly leftist votes—in Ibiza, the Bay of Palma, and elsewhere—which would make it—who knows for how long.
