The PP is in opposition at the national level in Spain, and polling ahead of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist Party ahead of next year’s national vote.
With the PP well ahead in polls throughout the Andalusian campaign, the main question ahead of the election was whether Moreno would be able to secure his second consecutive majority in the region, the most populous in Spain. With 99.8 percent of votes counted, the PP is on track to secure 53 seats in the 109-seat parliament, a loss of five seats.
Moreno is the leading figure of the PP’s moderate wing. The loss of his party’s majority — albeit by a narrow margin — is a blow to those who saw his centrist politics as a potential model for the national leadership to follow into the next general election, scheduled for 2027.
Moreno had appealed to conservative and moderate Socialist voters to turn out to ensure he secured a majority, which he argued would provide the region with continued stability. On the campaign trail he also criticized the central government over a train accident that killed 46 people near the city of Córdoba in January.
Looking leftward, Sánchez’s party also had a bad night, registering its worst-ever result in Andalusia, which used to be its biggest electoral stronghold. It won 28 seats, down from 30 four years ago, with parties to its left performing well.
Adelante Andalucía, to the left of the Socialists, made substantial gains to win eight seats, ahead of the left-wing coalition Por Andalucía, which registered five.