Balearic Islands: PP, PSOE and Vox Share Eight Seats, and the PSOE's Third Is Up in the Air (45%)

The Balearic Islands (Illes Balears) elect eight members of Congress on November 29, and in the central scenario the forecast gives three to the conservative People's Party (PP), three to the Socialists (PSOE) and two to Vox. The PSOE's third seat is the one in play: it keeps it in 45% of simulations, and the PP challenges it in 28%. The last seat goes to the PP in 36% of cases, the PSOE in 31%, Vox in 22% and Frente Amplio, which runs here as Ara MÉS-Front Ampli, in 10%. Podemos runs separately. In 2023 the PP and the PSOE won three seats each, and Sumar and Vox one each.

25 October 2026 · Miguel · Leer en español

Eight seats and three big parties

The Balearic Islands form a district with eight members of Congress, the same as in 2023. That year the PP won with 35.6% of the vote and three seats, ahead of the PSOE (30.2%, three), Sumar (16.6%, one) and Vox (15.2%, one).

The forecast of Saturday, October 24, gives the PP 33.4% of the vote (between 25.2% and 42.2% in 95% of simulations); the PSOE, 26.6% (19.4–34.5%); Vox, 22.7% (16.0–30.4%); Frente Amplio, the candidacy that succeeds Sumar and runs in the Balearics as Ara MÉS-Front Ampli, 7.7% (3.4–14.6%); Podemos, which runs separately, 4.3% (1.5–9.5%); and Se Acabó La Fiesta, 1.8%. In seats, the PP ends up between two and four (three in 66% of simulations), the PSOE between two and three (two in 54% and three in 44%) and Vox between one and three (two in 79%). Frente Amplio wins a seat in 25% of simulations; Podemos, in 3%.

The PSOE’s third seat, between the PP and Vox

Seven seats are fairly clear: the PP has its first and second seats safe and its third in 94%; the PSOE its first safe and its second in 99%; and Vox its first safe and its second in 91%. The eighth is the PSOE’s third: it wins it in 45% of simulations, and its main challenger is the PP, at 28%. Seen another way, the last seat in the allocation goes to the PP in 36% of cases, the PSOE in 31%, Vox in 22% and Frente Amplio in 10%. Half of the simulations put the gap that decides it between 4,600 and 23,500 votes, with a median of about 11,500.

In 2023 the last seat was also the PSOE’s (its third), with a bigger cushion: the PP would have needed 23,079 additional votes to take it, and Sumar 17,704. You can see how the last seats rank across Spain on the last seat page.

From a tie to the 2023 staircase

The Balearics started the series with a near-perfect tie: in 2008 the PSOE took 44.2% of the vote and the PP 44.0%, four seats each. In 2011 the PP rose to 49.6% and five seats. From 2015 the vote split: Podemos and its allies together took 25.4% in 2015 and 2016 (two seats), Ciudadanos 14.8% and 14.6% (one), and the PP fell to 29.1% and 35.1% (three seats both times). In April 2019 the PSOE won (26.4%, three seats), with the PP at 16.8% (one seat), its low for the series. In November that year the PSOE (25.4%), the PP (22.8%), the left of the PSOE (18.1%) and Vox (17.1%) won two seats each. In 2023 the PP went back to 35.6% and tied the PSOE at three.

The municipal map followed those swings. The PP won 66 of the 67 municipalities in 2011; the PSOE won 47 in April 2019; and the PP again won 54 in 2023 (the PSOE 10 and Sumar three). Between November 2019 and 2023, 25 municipalities changed winner, and 49 have done so at least once since 2008.

Municipality by municipality

For 2026 the estimate makes the PP the favorite in 62 of the 67 municipalities and the PSOE in five. Nine are “solid” favorites (first in at least 95% of simulations), 50 are leaning and eight are toss-ups; by number of voters, 8.7% live in solid municipalities, 79.7% in leaning ones and 11.6% in toss-ups. Eight municipalities would change winner, all toward the PP: five won by the PSOE in 2023 (Maó, 55%; Es Mercadal, 52%; Binissalem, 51%; Son Servera, 51%; and Consell, 49.5%, all toss-ups) and three won by Sumar (Esporles, 75%; Campanet, 65%; and Deià, 50%).

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

Palma, with 290,754 voters, is the municipality that weighs the most. In 2023 the PP took 34.5%, the PSOE 30.2%, Vox 17.3% and the left of the PSOE 15.6%, a 4.3-point PP lead. The municipal forecast gives the PP a 70% chance of finishing first, the PSOE 17% and Vox 13%. In Llucmajor (PP 53%, Vox 43%) and Inca (PP 47%, Vox 34%) the PP starts in front but with Vox close, and both municipalities appear as toss-ups.

Inside Palma

Palma is split almost down the middle: in 2023 the PP was the most-voted party in 134 of its 253 sections and the PSOE in 118; one section went to the left of the PSOE. In November 2019 the picture was very different: of the 243 sections in Palma that have kept their code since 2008, the PSOE won 163 and the PP 51.

Across the Balearics, 615 sections keep their code in all seven elections (93% of the electorate). In 186 of them (29% of their voters) the bloc made up of the PP, Ciudadanos and Vox has finished ahead of the PSOE and the left in all seven elections; in 83 (13%), the left has. The other 346 have changed bloc at least once. From November 2019 to 2023, 193 sections changed winner: 131 went from the PSOE to the PP, 23 from Vox to the PP and 22 from the left of the PSOE to the PP. Among those sections, 172 were decided in 2023 by less than five points.

Turnout

In 2023, 63.6% of resident voters turned out, against 67.6% in April 2019, 58.7% in November that year and 68.2% in 2008. The October 24 forecast is 66.3% of residents, with a 95% interval from 59.5% to 72.7%. With 829,000 voters, each point of turnout is about 8,300 votes, of the same order as the median gap that decides the last seat.

The 2024 European elections: a second-order contest

In the 2024 European elections, with turnout of 37.7%, the PP won 35.8% in the Balearics, the PSOE 28.9% and Vox 11.2%. Se Acabó La Fiesta took 5.3%, Ara Més-Ara Repúbliques 5.2%, Sumar 4.4% and Podemos 3.1%. European elections are second-order contests: turnout is lower and voters have different incentives, so the model uses them only in part, to split the vote of Se Acabó La Fiesta and Podemos across provinces.

The Senate: four islands, six senators

The Senate is elected by island: Mallorca (three senators), Menorca (one), Eivissa (one) and Formentera (one, which the model treats as a district of its own under Organic Law 2/2026). The model assumes, pending confirmation, a joint PSOE and Frente Amplio list. In Mallorca the most likely result is two senators for the PP and one for the joint list (54%), followed by one and two (42%). In Menorca the joint list wins in 68.5% of simulations and the PP in 31.5%. In Eivissa the PP wins in 80% and the joint list in 20%. In Formentera the joint list wins in 59% and the PP in 41%.

Who votes in the Balearics

The Balearics have 1,266,279 residents and a much larger foreign population than Spain as a whole: 22.1% of residents hold foreign citizenship (14.9% in Spain) and 24.7% were born abroad (15.3%). It is also a services economy: 87.1% of workers are employed in services (75.8% in Spain), and industry employs only 4.2% (13.6%).

Income per person (€17,158) and per household (€47,774) is above Spain’s (€15,948 and €40,605), with a younger population (17.3% are 65 or older, vs. 21.2%) and a density of 252.7 people per km² (98.6 in Spain).

How we calculated it

• History. Official Congress results (Spain’s Official Gazette, BOE) from 2008 to 2023, grouped by party family. Results by municipality and section come from the Interior Ministry’s polling-station files; adding the vote from Spaniards abroad, they match the BOE totals in all seven elections. Turnout: residents only, excluding the overseas vote.
• Candidacies. Podemos runs separately and Frente Amplio runs as Ara MÉS-Front Ampli (model assumptions until the proclaimed candidacies are published).
• Provincial forecast. altnalysis’s October 24 forecast (50,000 simulations).
• Municipal estimate. 4,000 simulations of the forecast: each municipality’s 2023 vote is shifted party by party, on a logistic scale, until the total matches the simulation, and a municipal error is added, larger the smaller the municipality. Solid: the favorite finishes first in 95% of simulations or more; leaning, between 60% and 95%; toss-up, below 60%.
• Sections. Interior Ministry polling-station files summed by census section; the Palma map shows the most-voted party in each section in 2023, not a forecast. In the bloc comparison, right is PP, Ciudadanos and Vox; left, PSOE, IU, Podemos, Más País and Sumar. Only sections with the same code in all seven elections are included.
• 2024 European elections. Interior Ministry polling-station files, each party’s vote in the province, as a share of valid votes.
• Senate. The Senate model’s 50,000 simulations, with the PSOE and Frente Amplio on a joint list (to be confirmed).
• Demographics. INE (Spain’s statistics office): Continuous Population Statistics (July 1, 2026, provisional), Household Income Distribution Atlas, 2021 Census and Labor Force Survey. Municipal boundaries: es-atlas (from Spain’s National Geographic Institute).
• Code. articulo_circ.py 07, secciones_circ.py 07 and articulo_mapa_capital.py 07, in the altnalysis repository.