From the former left-wing voter to the one who doubts the PP: Who goes to see a Vox rally?

Palma"Spain is my church, and its flag my altar". This is the lyrics of the song National Priority that Vox released in the campaign for the Andalusian elections and this Saturday it played at full volume at the rally of Santiago Abascal in front of the Cathedral. The landscape is always the same: flags of Spain, national team jerseys with Abascal's name on the back and girls wearing bracelets with the words 'The reconquest'. But what are the Vox fans like who have come to listen to their leader in Palma?

At first glance, the attendees at the rally fit the profile that the Center for Sociological Research (CIS) has been drawing: the majority are young men of the right, with different income levels. But some differences are detected. Among the 1,500 people who answered Vox's call in Palma (according to National Police data), there is a significant presence of women: both young women with the Spanish flag on their mobile phone cases and professionals in their fifties. And although 84.8% of Vox voters in the 2023 general election had Spanish as their mother tongue, the Catalan language is also heard among the attendees.

This is the case for two siblings from Felanitx, who are chatting animatedly after the event. She is 24 years old, works in the transport sector, and has always voted for Vox: she does not trust the traditional parties, to whom she attributes the housing crisis. "I want to have access to a home," she asserts, and adds: "I want to walk safely down the street." Vox's anti-immigration policies are the issue that stands out most in the program. Her 31-year-old brother agrees with her, even though he used to vote for the left. "I realized that in reality, they weren't fixing anything they claimed to," he declares.

Armed with a large Spanish flag featuring the Vox logo, a rojigualda ribbon, and a Vox Llucmajor badge, a 63-year-old airport baggage handler will also choose Abascal's ballot, driven by his rejection of migrants. "Have you seen the type of people coming?" he asserts: "There are those who come honestly, but those who don't must be deported." Although he used to vote for the PP, he will now choose the more radical option.

A 52-year-old cook explains to ARA Balears that she has always been right-wing, but now she is also leaning towards Vox. "I think people should read the electoral program," she states: "I have done so, and I haven't felt discriminated against, as a woman, for anything." Although she has many migrant colleagues at her job, she argues that "they are workers." The problem with immigration, she asserts, "is the other" migrants. "We must be able to go out into the street calmly, both my husband and I," she asserts. She says this in reference to irregular immigration, which Vox criminalizes by attributing an increase in insecurity and delinquency to it without providing data to prove it. This Saturday, Abascal once again made calls for the deportation of unaccompanied migrant minors which, from the audience, were met with shouts of "out" and "scum".

Regarding Marga Prohens' government, she considers that "she is doing it well" because she depends on Vox's support. "Now the PP is copying Abascal's ideas," she insists. A few meters away, two nursing technicians aged 52 and 55 express themselves in similar terms. "Marga Prohens is fine, Alberto Núñez Feijóo too, but he resembles Mariano Rajoy, he is a bit insipid," says one of them, who is very clear that she will opt for Abascal's ballot. She does not know the party's representatives in the Islands: all the witnesses consulted explain that they follow national politics more than regional ones. "Without mincing words, what I like most is the law to ban the burqa in public spaces," she adds: "They have to adapt to us, if I go over there, I will put on a sheet myself." Although she thinks the same as her, her companion is still debating between voting for Vox and the PP. "I have come to clear things up," she says. She has been, therefore, one of the recipients of the appeal to PP voters that Abascal made from the stage.

"Taxes, borders, and economy: that is what convinces me about Vox, that it focuses on what is important." With these words, a 22-year-old young man from Palma summarizes his move from the PP to Vox. These will be the second general elections in which he will exercise his right to vote. He has just finished his law studies. With a plastic flag of Spain, he saves a seat for a friend of his.