Navarra: UPN and the PP Won Two of Five Seats in All Seven Elections Since 2008, and Run Together Again on November 29

Navarra elects five members of Congress on November 29. According to the announced candidacies, the regional conservative party UPN and the national People's Party (PP) run in coalition, and the forecast gives them 29.6% of the vote and two seats, the same as the Socialists (PSOE), with one for EH Bildu. The PSOE's second seat is the one at stake: it keeps it in 56% of simulations, and Vox challenges it in 24%. The last seat goes to the PSOE in 35% of cases, the PP in 27%, EH Bildu in 20% and Vox in 16%, with a median gap of about 7,200 votes. In 2023 UPN and the PP ran separately and won one seat each.

25 October 2026 · Miguel · Leer en español

Five seats and UPN and the PP together again

Navarra is a single-province district with five members of Congress, the same as in 2023. That year the PSOE won with 27.4% of the vote and two seats. The PP (16.7%) and UPN (15.3%) ran separately and won one seat each; EH Bildu, with 17.2%, took another, and Sumar (12.8%) won none, 2,855 votes short of taking the PSOE’s second.

For November 29, according to the announced candidacies, UPN and the PP run in coalition, headed in Congress by Leticia San Martín. The PSN-PSOE (Elma Saiz) runs alone for Congress and, in the Senate, on a joint list with Frente Amplio (IU and Batzarre). The rest of the field is EH Bildu (Eneka Maiz), Geroa Bai together with the PNV (Pablo Azcona), Vox (Socorro Sada) and Frente Amplio (Javier Ibáñez). Podemos’s candidacy is not confirmed: the model includes it separately, as in the rest of Spain. The official list will be published in the BOE (Spain’s Official Gazette) in the coming days, and the model will be updated with it. In the model, UPN counts with the PP, and Geroa Bai and the PNV stay inside “Others”.

In the table, “PP” includes UPN in every election. On that basis, the UPN-PP bloc has won two of the five seats in each of the seven general elections since 2008, with between 28.9% of the vote (2015) and 39.2% (2008); in 2023 it was 32.0%. The PSOE has moved between one and two seats (two in 2008, April 2019 and 2023). The space of IU, Podemos and Sumar moved the most: IU and Podemos together took 27.1% and 28.3% in 2015 and 2016, with two seats each time, and Sumar 12.8% in 2023, with none. The seats of Na-Bai, Geroa Bai and Bildu (Amaiur, EH Bildu) have come and gone: one in 2008, two in 2011 (Amaiur and Geroa Bai), none from 2015 to April 2019, and one in November 2019 and in 2023 (EH Bildu).

The forecast: who challenges the PSOE’s second seat

The forecast of Saturday, October 24, gives UPN and the PP 29.6% of the vote (between 19.8% and 39.2% in 95% of simulations); the PSOE, 23.5% (15.5–31.7%); EH Bildu, 18.4%, with a very wide interval (8.0–37.6%); Vox, 10.3% (6.3–14.9%); Frente Amplio, the heir to Sumar, 6.1% (2.5–12.0%); Podemos, 3.7%; and Se Acabó La Fiesta, 1.5%. “Others,” which includes Geroa Bai and the PNV, add up to 5.7%.

In seats, the central scenario gives two to UPN and the PP, two to the PSOE and one to EH Bildu. UPN and the PP win two seats in 77% of simulations, and the PSOE wins two in 55% and one in 44%. EH Bildu wins one in 68% of simulations, none in 13% and two in 16%. Vox wins a seat in 24%, and Frente Amplio in 3%.

Four seats are almost settled: the first of UPN-PP (99.5%) and of the PSOE (99.2%), the second of UPN-PP (92%) and EH Bildu’s (87%). The fifth is the PSOE’s second, which it wins in 56% of simulations; its main challenger is Vox, at 24%. Seen another way, the last seat goes to the PSOE in 35% of cases, UPN-PP in 27%, EH Bildu in 20% and Vox in 16%. Half of the simulations put the gap that decides it between 3,000 and 14,900 votes, with a median of about 7,200.

Four parties have realistic chances at the last seat, which is why Navarra is among the provinces in The Small Ones Matter (II). You can see the full ranking on the last seat page.

Municipality by municipality: 272 small maps

With 272 municipalities, Navarra has one of the most fragmented maps in Spain. In the estimate, “Others” groups EH Bildu, Geroa Bai and local lists, which the municipal model does not separate. In 2023, adding UPN and the PP together, they won 111 municipalities, “Others” 99 (including two ties), the PSOE 60 and Sumar 2. Between November 2019 and 2023, 45 municipalities changed winner, and 168 have done so at least once since 2008.

For 2026 the estimate makes UPN-PP the favorite in 112 municipalities, “Others” in 131 and the PSOE in 29. Uncertainty is large: only 32 municipalities are solid favorites, 136 are leaning and 104 are toss-ups. By number of voters, 6.8% live in solid municipalities, 66.5% in leaning ones and 26.6% in toss-ups. Fifty-one would change winner.

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

Pamplona/Iruña, with 152,691 voters, went in 2023 to UPN and the PP combined (34.5%) ahead of the PSOE (24.7%), with Sumar at 13.6%; the municipal forecast gives UPN-PP a 70% chance of finishing first and “Others” 27%. In Tudela (UPN-PP 41.3% and PSOE 29.1% in 2023), UPN-PP is the favorite at 93%. The metropolitan area is more divided: in Barañáin the PSOE won in 2023 by three tenths of a point (30.4% to 30.1%) and the forecast leaves it a toss-up; Burlada and Ansoáin, which the PSOE won in 2023, appear as toss-ups between the PSOE and “Others”.

Inside Pamplona

Adding UPN and the PP together, the most-voted party in 2023 was UPN-PP in 80 of the capital’s 151 sections, the PSOE in 49 and EH Bildu in 22. Across Navarra (579 census sections) the PSOE won 311, EH Bildu 163, the PP 52 and UPN 50. From November 2019 to 2023, 41% of the 545 sections that have kept their code since 2008 changed winner (221): 121 went from the PP to the PSOE, 48 from the PP to UPN and 25 from the PP to EH Bildu.

Turnout

In 2023, 69.9% of resident voters turned out, against 76.3% in April 2019 and 73.3% in 2008. The October 24 forecast is 73.7% of residents, with a 95% interval from 67.9% to 79.0%.

The 2024 European elections: a second-order contest

In the 2024 European elections, with turnout of 50.0%, the PSOE came first in Navarra (28.8%), followed by the PP (28.0%; in the polling-station files UPN does not appear as a separate candidacy), EH Bildu (18.7%) and Vox (6.7%). Sumar took 3.9%, Geroa Bai 3.2%, Podemos 3.2% and Se Acabó La Fiesta 3.1%. It is a second-order contest, with different incentives and lower turnout, and the model uses it only in part, to split the vote of Se Acabó La Fiesta and Podemos across provinces.

The Senate

Navarra elects four senators, and each voter can pick up to three. The model assumes the joint PSOE and Frente Amplio list against the UPN and PP list. The split is wide open: UPN-PP wins three senators in 41.5% of simulations, one in 33% and two in 19%; the joint list, one in 44%, three in 30% and two in 19%. The most likely split is three for UPN-PP and one for the joint list (39%), followed by one and three (28%) and two and two (17%). EH Bildu wins three senators in 7% of simulations.

Who votes in Navarra

Navarra has 692,026 residents and is much more rural than Spain as a whole: 7.8% live in municipalities of fewer than 1,000 people (3.0% in Spain) and 31.6% in municipalities of fewer than 5,000 (11.8%).

Two features set Navarra’s economy apart: industry employs 28.9% of workers (13.6% in Spain), and income per person (€17,701) is higher than Spain’s (€15,948), with more college degrees (37.2% vs. 31.9%) and less unemployment (13.7% vs. 17.2%).

How we calculated it

• History. Official Congress results (Spain’s Official Gazette, BOE) from 2008 to 2023, grouped by party family, with UPN added to the PP in every election. 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. Announced in the press on October 23 and 24, 2026; the official list will appear in the BOE. Model assumptions: UPN inside the PP, Geroa Bai and the PNV inside “Others,” Podemos separate.
• Provincial forecast. altnalysis’s October 24 forecast (50,000 simulations).
• Municipal estimate. 4,000 simulations of the forecast: each municipality’s 2023 vote (with UPN added to the PP) 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. “Others” includes EH Bildu, Geroa Bai and local lists. 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 Pamplona map combines UPN and the PP and is not a forecast. The count of Navarra’s 579 sections in 2023 and the changes between 2019 and 2023 use the 545 sections with the same code in all seven elections and treat UPN and the PP as separate candidacies.
• 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.
• 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 31, secciones_circ.py 31 and articulo_mapa_capital.py 31, in the altnalysis repository.