A Tale of Two Catalonias in One Province: the Socialist Belt and the Barcelona of the Comarques

Barcelona elects 32 members of Congress on November 29, and the forecast gives about 12 to the Socialists (PSOE), 6 to the conservative People's Party (PP), 5 to Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), 4 to the far-right Vox, 3 to Frente Amplio and 2 to Junts. Two Catalonias live inside the province: the metropolitan belt, where the PSC (the Catalan branch of the Socialists) took 41% in 2023 and the pro-independence parties barely 16%, and the comarques (county-like districts), where ERC, Junts and the CUP together won a third of the vote. In the capital, the dividing line is income: the PSC wins in nine of ten districts, Junts grows with income and the PP only takes off in the richest neighborhoods.

23 October 2026 · Miguel · Leer en español

32 seats and a recent upset

Barcelona is Spain’s second-largest district by number of members of Congress: 32, the same as in 2023. In the last general election, the PSC (the Catalan branch of the Socialists, PSOE) won with 35.7% of the vote and 13 seats, ahead of Sumar (the left alliance, including the comuns; 15.2%, 5), the PP (13.8%, 5), ERC (the pro-independence centre-left Republican Left of Catalonia; 12.3%, 4), Junts (Together for Catalonia, the pro-independence centre-right and heir of CiU; 9.7%, 3) and Vox (7.6%, 2). Four years earlier, in November 2019, the PSC and ERC had finished almost tied (21.8% and 21.1%), and ERC, Junts and the CUP (the anti-capitalist pro-independence left) together took 38.9% of the vote; in 2023 they fell to 24.5%.

Today’s forecast gives the PSOE 32.8% of the vote and about 12 seats (between 9 and 15 in 95% of simulations); the PP, 16.4% and 6; ERC, 15.5% and 5; Vox, 12.9% and 4; Frente Amplio, the heir of Sumar, 8.5% and 3; and Junts, 7.9% and 2. The last seat is wide open: the PSOE wins it in 35% of simulations, the PP in 18%, ERC in 17% and Vox in 14%, with a median gap of about 12,000 votes.

Four Barcelonas

The province has 4.03 million resident voters spread over 311 municipalities. We have grouped them into four zones: the capital (1.08 million); the rest of the Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona (the official metropolitan authority), the other 35 municipalities of the official area, from L’Hospitalet and Badalona to Sant Cugat and Castelldefels (1.18 million); the eight large cities outside the area, such as Sabadell, Terrassa, Mataró or Manresa (0.64 million); and the rest of the province, 267 municipalities in the comarques of the Vallès, the Maresme, the Penedès, Osona, the Bages or the Berguedà (1.12 million).

In the rest of the metropolitan area, the PSC took 40.8% in 2023, and ERC, Junts and the CUP together, 16.3%. In the rest of the province the PSC also won (31.8%), but ERC (15.8%), Junts (14.0%) and the CUP (3.6%) added up to 33.4%. The capital sits in between: PSC 33.2%, Sumar 16.9%, PP 15.9%, ERC 12.2% and Junts 10.3%.

The pro-independence retreat

The biggest change between 2019 and 2023 was not the rise of one party, but the retreat of the pro-independence vote in every zone. In November 2019, ERC won in the city of Barcelona (21.0% against the PSC’s 19.9%) and in 204 of the province’s 311 municipalities. In 2023, the PSC won in 197 and ERC in only 34. In the comarques, ERC, Junts and the CUP went from a combined 50.8% of the vote in 2019 to 33.4%; in the capital, from 40.3% to 25.2%.

Turnout fell at the same time: from 73.4% to 65.7% in the comarques, from 72.4% to 66.2% in the rest of the metropolitan area and from 73.4% to 67.4% in the capital. Part of the pro-independence retreat may have been abstention rather than a change of vote; with aggregate results, the two cannot be told apart.

The capital: the PSC in nine of ten districts

In 2023, the PSC won in every district of Barcelona except Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, where the PP took 30.9% against the PSC’s 21.4% and Junts’ 15.7%. In Les Corts, the other high-income district, the PSC won narrowly (28.0% against the PP’s 23.7%). At the other end is Nou Barris, with the PSC at 43.5%.

The map of pro-independence voting inside the city differs from that of the right. ERC had its best district in Gràcia (15.4%), where Sumar (20.9%) and the CUP (4.8%) were also above their city average; Junts, in Sarrià-Sant Gervasi (15.7%). Turnout was 72.4% in Sarrià and Les Corts, 61.7% in Nou Barris and 54.5% in Ciutat Vella.

Income orders the vote

If the capital’s census tracts are ranked by the average income of their households and grouped into ten bands (deciles), three distinct patterns appear.

• The PSC falls with income: from 45.3% in the poorest decile (about 30,600 euros average household income) to 21.5% in the richest (84,100 euros).
• Junts rises with income: from 3.2% to 15.6%. ERC, by contrast, draws a curve: from 7.9% at the bottom to a peak of 14.3% in deciles 7 and 8, and 8.1% at the top.
• The PP only takes off at the end: it hovers around 13% in the first eight deciles and rises to 18.3% and 31.6% in the two richest. Vox is U-shaped: 8.9% in the poorest decile, 4.4% in the seventh and 8.0% in the richest.

Turnout goes from 54.3% in the poorest decile to 73.0% in the richest in the capital, and from 55.0% to 71.3% in the rest of the province. In the rest of the province, Junts’ staircase is even steeper: from 2.3% to 15.5%.

What the forecast says for November 29

As in other provinces, we allocate the provincial forecast across municipalities by shifting their 2023 vote, with noise specific to each municipality; for the capital’s districts, we apply to all of them the same shift as for the city.

The PSOE stays first in all four zones: 37.5% in the rest of the metropolitan area, 34.3% in the large cities, 31.1% in the capital and 29.3% in the comarques. But in the comarques ERC closes in (19.7%) and, with Junts (11.2%), would add up to 30.8%, somewhat more than in 2023 (29.8% not counting the CUP). Vox, at 12.9% in the province, would come close to 15% in the metropolitan area and in the large cities. In the capital, the PP would move ahead of the PSC in Les Corts (27.1% against 25.2%) and widen its lead in Sarrià-Sant Gervasi.

In 76 municipalities the favorite differs from the 2023 winner. All have fewer than 45,000 voters: in 35 it goes from Junts to ERC and in 21 from the PSC to ERC, which would be the favorite in 91 municipalities against the 34 it won in 2023. In all the large cities the PSC remains the favorite, although in Sant Cugat del Vallès only in 62% of simulations.

Lead: points over the runner-up in 2023. "First in": share of 4,000 simulations in which the favorite finishes first in the municipality.

These are rough estimates: they assume each municipality and each district moves like its province, with its own margin of error, and they do not capture local candidacies or parties that the forecast groups under “others”, such as the CUP or Aliança Catalana (a far-right pro-independence party).

How we calculated it

• Results. Polling-station votes from Spain’s Interior Ministry for 2008 to 2023, summed by census tract, municipality, district and zone, excluding the vote of residents abroad, and validated against the official gazette (BOE) totals.
• Zones. Rest of the metropolitan area: the 35 municipalities of the Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona besides the capital (Badalona, Badia del Vallès, Barberà del Vallès, Begues, Castellbisbal, Castelldefels, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Cervelló, Corbera de Llobregat, Cornellà de Llobregat, El Papiol, El Prat de Llobregat, Esplugues de Llobregat, Gavà, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, La Palma de Cervelló, Molins de Rei, Montcada i Reixac, Montgat, Pallejà, Ripollet, Sant Adrià de Besòs, Sant Andreu de la Barca, Sant Boi de Llobregat, Sant Climent de Llobregat, Sant Cugat del Vallès, Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Sant Joan Despí, Sant Just Desvern, Sant Vicenç dels Horts, Santa Coloma de Cervelló, Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Tiana, Torrelles de Llobregat and Viladecans). Large cities outside the area: Granollers, Manresa, Mataró, Mollet del Vallès, Rubí, Sabadell, Terrassa and Vilanova i la Geltrú.
• Families. Junts includes CiU and Junts per Catalunya depending on the election; the Sumar left groups ICV-EUiA, En Comú Podem and Sumar.
• Income. Average net household income of each census tract, from the INE’s Household Income Distribution Atlas.
• Forecast. Today’s provincial forecast, allocated across municipalities by shifting their 2023 vote on a logistic scale until it matches the provincial mean, with municipal noise (4,000 simulations); ERC and Junts have their own group. Zones are the average of their municipalities weighted by voters; districts get the same shift as the city.
• Code. articulo_circ.py 08 and articulo_zonas.py 08, in the altnalysis repository.