Over the last two days, ElNacional.cat has published five articles detailing different results from the Barcelona pre-election survey, commissioned from the Feedback Institute, on the occasion of the municipal elections to be held this Sunday. From the narrow edge that Xavier Trias holds over Jaume Collboni and Ada Colau, to the very strong opposition to the proposition that current mayor might repeat four more years in office - 75% of Barcelona residents are against that - and from the negative opinion on the evolution of the Catalan capital in this last electoral mandate - 61% of Barcelona residents think the city has deteriorated - to the solid support from 75% on toughening measures against squatters.
But if there is one statistic that really catches the eye, it is the indisputable advantage of Trias in two particular questions. There are 37.1% of Barcelona residents who want him to be the next mayor, compared to 18% for Colau and 11% for Collboni. And he is also the candidate considered best prepared to solve day-to-day problems: fighting against incivic behaviour in the street (38.3%), keeping the city clean (38.1%), international projection of Barcelona's image (36.7%), setting the conditions to attract investments and create jobs (35.9%), keeping law and order and fighting crime (35.5%), ensuring the quality and quantity of tourism that Barcelona attracts (32.8%), traffic management and planning (27.3%) and the operation of public transport (26.2%). On the other hand, more respondents believe that Ada Colau is better prepared to manage air quality in Barcelona and its natural environment (parks, beaches and mountains), 31.4%, and to make gains in access to housing, 27.7%. Collboni does not lead in any of these subjects.
Since I'm used to analyzing polls, it appears that there is one key question: why does the ample personal advantage held by Trias not end up translating into votes, according to the polls? There are only two explanations: the large snowball of discontent with Colau has lost some volume thanks to the PSC's campaign, calm and distanced from the mayor, conveying the idea that the Socialists were not present in City Hall, when in reality they have co-governed the city during these years. Moreover, Collboni left his post a few months ago, but the rest of the PSC structure is still there. The result of the survey is categorical, with 70% of Socialist voters asserting that the city has got worse on these four years, compared to 12% who say it has improved. Not to recognize the skill with which the Socialists have put some space between themselves and Colau is to fail to understand what a campaign is able to spell out. Secondly, the scarce presence of Trias in the political party campaign spaces on TV3 during the nightly news, in which he is difficult to spot. On Sunday night, for example, Collboni and Colau appeared, but the ex-mayor did not. It was not an exception, and in terms of presenting themselves as the alternative to Colau, the rivals of Trias have a television advantage.
In an election which is as tight as this one appears to be, and in which there is widespread agreement that there is a triple-tie between Trias, Colau and Collboni, the details matter - a lot. The details of the message, the strategy, the visibility, the claims for "useful votes", leadership, the project and also the building of trust and empathy. This Tuesday night's debate on TV3, five days before the election, will play a significant role in the final choice for many of the undecided voters. It would also be the moment to ask the people of Barcelona for their support on the basis of their knowing what the different candidates will do with the votes and in whose hands they will finally end up. Thus, there should be a commitment that the political plot-twist of 2019 - which brought the Comuns and Socialists into an alliance with Manuel Valls, who had preached that he was the guarantee that Colau would not continue in office - is not repeated.