Sánchez calls a Spanish election for 29 November

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez called a snap general election on Monday for 29 November. The vote can end the last major Socialist-led government in the European Union, or it can extend it. Polling compiled by Politico does not favour the second outcome.

Politico's poll of polls put the centre-right People's Party at 34 percent, the Socialist Party at 26 percent and the far-right Vox at 18 percent. On those numbers the People's Party would be short of a majority and would look to Vox. Sánchez, in calling the election, warned about the rise of the far right. The warning is also the arithmetic of the alternative: a PP-Vox cabinet if the polls hold for eight weeks.

The trigger he has chosen to fight on is housing. Unaffordable housing tops voter concerns in Spain and has already produced street protests. Sánchez is treating that file as ground he can campaign on, after a year in which other files have hurt him. Corruption cases have battered the Socialist Party. Over the summer he took heavy criticism for his handling of migrants arriving at Ceuta, the Spanish city on the Moroccan coast. Neither of those files has gone away because an election has been called. They will sit on the same ballot as rents.

A snap election in Spain is a prime minister's tool. Sánchez has used it before and has survived results that looked terminal at the start of a campaign. The difference this time is the poll gap and the partner he would need. A Socialist-led cabinet after 29 November would still need regional and left parties that have already extracted a price for the last legislature. A People's Party cabinet would need Vox, or a bargain with smaller parties that have said they will not serve as a bridge. The king will ask someone to try. The someone is not known until the seats are counted.

The European consequence is concrete. Sánchez has been one of the louder critics of Donald Trump inside the European Council. A PP-led government in Madrid would not automatically reverse Spain's EU votes, but it would change the voice in the room on migration, on Gaza policy and on how sharply to answer Washington. Vox's entry into a cabinet, if it happens, would put a hard-right party in government in the eurozone's fourth-largest economy. That is a different fact from a poll lead.

Between Monday and 29 November the campaign has a single measurable fight: whether the housing file moves the Socialist number off 26, and whether Vox stays near 18 or grows as the anti-Sánchez vote consolidates. Ceuta and the corruption cases will be used by the opposition every day of those eight weeks. Sánchez has bet that voters who cannot pay the rent will weigh that more heavily than the cases. The poll, as of the call, says they have not yet done so.