This Monday evening, hours before the ban on distributing electoral surveys at 12am this Tuesday, we've published the final election survey by Feedback for El Nacional on expectations for voting in the city of Barcelona which was based on fieldwork finished at 2pm. Spanish electoral law requires us to remain in the dark as to how votes are developing over these last few days, something which is utterly anomalous in the 21st century but which pleases the parties enormously. At a time when the percentage of indecisive voters is so high (still over 18% being more than 200,000 people), and given how close it is at the head of the race to come first in the Catalan capital, nothing is completely decided. If the city council election was held today, Esquerra Republicana's candidate would reach the finish line first. Over three polls in the last two weeks, Ernest Maragall has been gradually opening a gap over his main rival, Ada Colau, which, if he doesn't lose it in these four days of campaigning, could end up proving definitive.
Something more than 30,000 votes in Maragall's favour, a perception among almost 60% of Barcelonans that the city is worse than it was four years ago, prospects for his list to win the most votes and, finally, for the first time, belief among residents that he will be the next mayor and not Ada Colau give him a certain advantage. This, on the other hand, will turn against him in the days left and, most likely, in tonight's debate on TV3 in which he'll have to preserve this result against the three party's Esquerra borders on: En comú, PSC and Junts per Catalunya. A few nerves are starting to show in mayor Colau's candidacy, as this Monday she left open the possibility of leaving the council if she doesn't win the election and doesn't consolidate her post for four more years. A topic, resignation, which has turned out badly before for Manuel Valls, the Ciudadanos candidate who has mostly disappeared from the campaign, and which is also being repeated by PP's Josep Bou. Times are changing too; previously, candidates would stay, win or lose, but they must have been, probably, more romantic and less self-interested.
Maragall's advantage is based on two factors: the first, that PSC is maintaining a strength it didn't have before the Spanish election won by Pedro Sánchez. Every time the acting prime minister gets involved in the campaign he gives Collboni's candidacy a push, taking votes from En Comú and favouring Esquerra. The same thing is happening at the intersection of ERC and JxCat, with the pair of Forn and Artadi, for example, not scraping together the votes to be a solid alternative with options of winning the council. The opposite of president Puigdemont who wherever he goes is taking votes from all the parties who aren't right-wing in the European election.