Spain’s general election campaign opens with rallies across the country ahead of 29 November vote

The 15-day campaign runs until the end of Friday 27 November. Voters will elect a new Congress of Deputies and Senate on Sunday 29 November. ALSO READ: Spain’s right retains clear majority in poll as Socialists close gap on PP.

Thursday’s general strike carried over into the opening rallies. ALSO READ: Tens of thousands march for affordable housing and higher wages in Spain’s first general strike in 14 years.

Sánchez defended the trade unions, Feijóo called the strike a failure, and the Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG) urged those who had walked out to take their protest to the ballot box. Housing also featured prominently, with Sánchez defending his government’s latest decree and Colau pressing him to go further on rents. ALSO READ: Spanish Congress extends eviction protections after general strike but rejects indefinite rental renewals.

Sánchez calls for an ‘epic comeback’ in Seville

Sánchez used his rally in Seville, a socialist stronghold, to call for a ‘historic mobilisation’ of progressive voters that could deliver an ‘epic comeback’ for the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE).

‘Faced with those who want to cut, cut and cut, we must vote, vote and vote,’ he told supporters. ALSO READ: Sánchez seeks campaign reset after Puente’s resignation and US election setback for Trump.

The prime minister defended his government’s record, pointing to the housing decree approved earlier on Thursday by the Congress’s Permanent Deputation. He also thanked trade unions for their work and condemned the language used against them. ‘And now they say it’s madness, that they’re a mafia or rubbish. What a disgrace!’ he said.

Sánchez said insults from the right were ‘our medals’. Playing on the Spanish word zurdos, which can mean both left-handers and leftists, he said he was proud of the label. He pointed to his refusal to accept US President Donald Trump’s demand for defence spending of 5% of GDP and his support for peace. ‘All with the left hand,’ he said. ALSO READ: PSOE considers legal action over PP video using AI to impersonate Sánchez’s wife and senior socialists.

In an unexpected appearance, Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, spoke at a campaign rally for the first time. Referring to the period in which she has faced a court case, she thanked those who had supported her and urged women to vote. ‘You’ve given me the encouragement to carry on,’ she said. The audience chanted back, ‘You’re not alone!’ ALSO READ: Spanish PM’s wife to stand trial as court upholds influence-peddling and embezzlement case.

La Fuerza de las Mujeres. https://t.co/b58FUdDifc

— Pedro Sánchez (@sanchezcastejon) November 12, 2026

Feijóo puts Catalonia at the centre of his appeal for change

At the Llefià municipal sports centre in Badalona, Feijóo said he wanted an ‘open, strong and prosperous’ Catalonia to play a leading role in rebuilding Spain. ‘I don’t want Catalonia standing on the sidelines or detached. I want it to be decisive,’ he said.

The PP leader asked voters to back a change of government and open ‘a new period of cordiality, work and cooperation’. He called the general strike a ‘failure’ but pledged to govern for everyone over the next four years, including those who had taken part. ‘The bad news for Sánchez is that on 29 November Spaniards aren’t going to strike. They’re going to vote,’ he said. ALSO READ: PP and Vox strike Senate election deal with judicial appointments in their sights.

Feijóo said Spain’s territorial integrity was ‘not up for negotiation with anyone’. He called for a government that would secure the country’s borders and said people arriving in Spain should ‘integrate into our society’. ALSO READ: Feijóo leaves door open to governing with Vox and sets out plans to revisit abortion and euthanasia laws.

Referring to court cases involving people close to the PSOE and Sánchez, Feijóo promised a ‘government that doesn’t steal’ and that ‘tells the truth’. If elected, he said, he would order what he called ‘an audit of the looting’ to establish ‘where Spaniards’ money is’. ALSO READ: Spanish PM denies any knowledge of suspected scheme targeting corruption probes.

Badalona’s mayor and leading PP candidate in Catalonia, Xavier García Albiol, also spoke, urging voters to back the party in a speech that took aim at squatters and left-wing activists in Barcelona. ALSO READ: Catalan police evict hundreds of migrants from Badalona squat deemed a safety hazard.

Haremos auditorías del saqueo para saber dónde ha ido cada euro y quién se lo ha llevado. https://t.co/9hBsiIOCiC

— Alberto Núñez Feijóo (@NunezFeijoo) November 12, 2026

Abascal makes immigration and ‘national priority’ central to Vox’s launch

Speaking at the Huesca conference centre in Aragón, where hundreds of protesters gathered, Abascal said Spain was facing ‘the election of our lives’ and called for ‘profound change’. He argued that these were no ‘normal elections’, accusing the Sánchez government of being ‘a criminal, lying and corrupt mafia’. ALSO READ: A Coruña sees renewed clashes and street fires after protests over Vox rally.

Abascal accused Sánchez’s government of having made deals in the previous parliamentary term with ‘ETA, separatists and communists’ and of defending Morocco’s interests. He asked what it might do if returned to office. ALSO READ: Spain’s Ceuta crisis: Polls show widespread disapproval of Sánchez as PP and Vox pass 50%.

The Vox leader also returned to his party’s policy of giving Spanish nationals priority. He blamed immigration for what he described as an overwhelmed health service and claimed that Spaniards were dying while waiting for operations because the government was giving healthcare away. ALSO READ: Spain’s PSOE moves to block ‘national priority’ policy, warning of ‘first- and second-class citizens’.

Acto completamente desbordado esta tarde en HUESCA. Mucha gente se ha tenido que quedar en la calle. A todos ellos nos hemos dirigido. ¡GRACIAS! #Huesca https://t.co/PYgl42UTzr

— Santiago Abascal 🇪🇸 (@Santi_ABASCAL) November 12, 2026

Colau challenges Sánchez on housing from Vallecas

Former Barcelona mayor Ada Colau acknowledged that Frente Amplio faced a ‘difficult campaign’ but told supporters in Vallecas that the coalition could overturn the polls. ‘We’ve come to change everything,’ she said, pledging to practise ‘transparent’ and ‘honest’ politics. ALSO READ: Spain’s left heads into election divided as unity talks collapse.

She also addressed Sánchez directly. ‘If we want a progressive government, we need more humility towards the working class and more courage in dealing with speculators,’ she said, urging him to strengthen the right to housing and regulate rents.

Colau was joined by candidates on Frente Amplio’s Madrid list, including Emilio Delgado, Tesh Sidi, the Izquierda Unida (IU) figure Toni Valero and the Sumar leader Verónica Martínez Barbero.

“Igual que ho diem a Nou Barris o a l’Hospitalet, també ho diem a Vallekas o a Móstoles, fora especuladors dels nostres barris”. https://t.co/553rjGpDKI

— Frente Amplio (@Frente_Amplio_) November 12, 2026

ERC and Junts trade attacks in Catalonia

In Tarragona (Catalonia), the Esquerra Republicana (ERC) party’s congressional candidate Gabriel Rufián said he wanted a PSOE government beholden to pro-sovereignty parties on the left. He accused Junts per Catalunya (JxCat) of helping Abascal by refusing to take sides and said it was following the example of Sílvia Orriols and Isabel Díaz Ayuso by voting with the PP and Vox against the interests of Catalan workers. ALSO READ: Spain’s housing decrees defeated as pressure grows on Sánchez to call snap election.

In Barcelona, JxCat congressional candidate Miriam Nogueras presented her party as the ‘tactical vote’ to keep the PP and Vox out and put ‘Catalonia at the centre’. She criticised ERC’s alliance with Podemos in Catalonia and invoked the independence referendum of 1 October 2017. ‘How we miss the ERC with whom we did 1 October!’ she said. ALSO READ: PP, Vox and Junts attack Sánchez’s record as Spain heads for November election.

Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont addressed the JxCat rally by video link. ALSO READ: Puigdemont cleared to return to Spain as judge lifts arrest warrant after amnesty ruling.

EH Bildu and the PNV open their campaigns in Vitoria

EH Bildu secretary-general Arnaldo Otegi said the pro-independence coalition would hand the PP and Vox a ‘democratic, popular, working-class, feminist and Basque nationalist thrashing’ in the Basque Country. He said the result would help blunt the advance of what he called the ‘reactionary bloc’.

‘If it depends on our votes, the PP and Vox won’t have a single foothold in power, not one,’ said Oskar Matute, EH Bildu’s candidate in Bizkaia.

The Basque Nationalist Party (EAJ-PNV) held its own launch in Vitoria’s Plaza de la Virgen Blanca. Party president Aitor Esteban said they would roll out ‘neither red carpets nor blue ones’ and warned that Basque self-government was off limits. Maribel Vaquero, the party’s lead candidate in Gipuzkoa, said its purpose in Madrid was to defend Basque interests through the clashes between the two blocs.

Vaquero was joined by fellow lead candidates Idoia Sagastizabal in Bizkaia and Gorka Urtaran in Álava, as well as Basque president Imanol Pradales.

Other parties make their opening appeals

• Compromís–Front Valencià used its launch in Alicante to present itself as the ‘tactical vote’ for a united left. The coalition accused an ‘emboldened right and far right’ of seeking to dismantle public pensions and privatise healthcare.
• Podemos candidate Irene Montero said the PSOE and the PP ‘are not the same’ but ‘vote the same way’. She urged supporters to build a left strong enough to stop the far right and secure ‘housing, peace and work’.
• Coalición Canaria–Primero Canarias candidate Cristina Valido urged voters to put the islands first and use their vote to ‘escape the noise of the right and the left’.
• The Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG) closed its pre-campaign in Vigo, where leader Ana Pontón called on those who had joined the general strike to carry their protest into the election. ‘Trade unionism isn’t rubbish. The PP’s housing policy is rubbish,’ she said.
• Ara Més–Front Ampli candidate Carme Gomila said in Palma (Mallorca) that the ‘only useful vote’ was one that could change the Balearic Islands and tackle property speculation and overtourism. ‘We don’t want the crumbs. We want the whole loaf,’ she said.
• The Union del Pueblo Navarro (UPN)–PP alliance said the countdown to ending ‘Sanchismo’ had begun and called on voters to ‘vote responsibly’. ‘If history has taught us anything, it’s that nothing lasts forever,’ said Leticia San Martín, its lead candidate for Congress.
• Unidad del Pueblo Canario (UPC) lead candidate in Las Palmas, Luis Campos, said the election would determine whether the Canary Islands had ‘a firm voice in defence of working people’ and the ability to make decisions from the islands themselves.