Socialists trail even in their old Andalusian stronghold as Sanchez launches re-election bid in Seville

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez officially launched his re-election bid in Seville on Thursday, appealing to Socialist loyalists in Andalusia, the southern region that served for decades as his party's political heartland.

But even here, the centre-left is now on the ropes — a stark sign of how improbable a Sanchez victory looks in the November 29 election.

Supporters waved red party banners and Andalusian flags and shouted 'Guapo' — 'Handsome!' — as Sanchez took the stage. The crowd had been shown videos of the prime minister reciting poems by Federico Garcia Lorca, the celebrated Andalusian poet and playwright murdered by Francoist forces in 1936.

'We are here to vote, we are here to win, we are here to govern,' Sanchez told the crowd.

The decision to launch the campaign in Seville carries historic symbolism. For 36 years, the Socialists dominated Andalusian politics, controlling the regional government and many of the region's biggest cities.

That hold on power ended in 2018, after years of declining support and a string of corruption scandals paved the way for the centre-right People's Party to take control.

Since becoming regional president in 2019, Juanma Moreno has established himself as a steady, pragmatic leader, winning a landslide victory in 2022 and securing the most votes in snap elections earlier this year. His success in Andalusia has also elevated his profile nationally, making him one of the leading figures of the People's Party's moderate wing.

Despite that consolidation of power, the Socialists are not ready to relinquish their claim on the region. Francisco Toscano, a Socialist candidate for congress in Seville, said the party still considered Andalusia to be its bastion. 'This is an eminently progressive region, and one whose voters believe in progressive government,' he said.

Toscano added that Andalusia is electorally crucial: it is Spain's most populous autonomous community and elects the largest number of lawmakers to the parliament in Madrid, accounting for 60 of the 350 seats.

But the latest polling suggests the Socialists could suffer disastrous results across the region. According to the latest GAD3 poll, the People's Party is ahead of the Socialists in most Andalusian provinces — including Seville, where Sanchez's party has never previously lost in a general election.

A rout in Andalusia would be more than a regional setback for Sanchez; it would further narrow his already slim path to re-election.

Analysts say the Socialists' decline in Andalusia is in many ways a consequence of their own success. When the party first came to power in the region in 1982, Andalusia was one of Spain's poorest areas, but under leaders such as Manuel Chaves — who ruled the region for 19 years — it underwent a profound transformation.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Socialist regional governments used EU structural funds to finance infrastructure projects such as the Madrid-Seville high-speed railway. Between 1982 and 1996, Socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez championed the region from Madrid, helping secure major investments and backing landmark events such as the Expo '92 World's Fair.

Angel Cazorla, a political scientist at the University of Granada, described what he called a 'paradox of satisfaction': although Andalusians felt the Socialists had overseen decades of progress and their own lives had improved, the great recession exposed how much remained unfinished.

Cazorla said the two deadly train accidents that rocked Spain this year, both on the iconic Madrid-Seville rail line, were emblematic of the party's decline, and representative of a social-democratic project that gradually ran out of steam.

Toscano acknowledged the party's shortcomings after decades in power, including pressure from the right, corruption scandals and a failure to adapt its message to changing living standards, while arguing the Socialists had nonetheless remained electorally competitive in parts of the region.

Cazorla argued the party also faces a generational problem: younger voters who grew up in an already-transformed Andalusia feel little identification with the Socialists, and the regionalist party Adelante Andalucia is more likely to attract local left-wing voters.

Toscano, however, framed the election as a choice between Sanchez's progressive agenda and the global conservative wave. 'We have seen public services deteriorate under Giorgia Meloni in Italy, and Javier Milei wielding his chainsaw to dismantle Argentina's welfare state,' he said. 'In this election, Spaniards must choose whether to remain a country that continues to make social progress or follow the path of regression we are seeing elsewhere.'