Sumar divides left and subtracts election seats

But "Sumar" (add up) is a catchy repetitive name for millions of messages between now and the elections. Could the female Galician communist surprise even the male Galician conservative by voting day?

(Note: Substack will launch a new feature over the next few days that they are calling “Notes”. Like Twitter but on Substack. Could be very interesting. I will email you when it goes live so we can try it.)

The first polls are out after Sumar (Yolanda Díaz) announced on the left:

1. El País/40DB: all lines mostly flat, like before. El País has not asked about Sumar on the left. On the right, no notable impact from Vox's motion of no confidence against Sánchez. They are still on 14-15%. Feijóo and Sánchez continue to lead on each side. Neither the left nor the right would add up to an overall majority.

2. La Razón/NC Report: Vox and the PP add up to a right-wing majority. The PSOE gets 21.9% of the vote on the left and Sumar gets 11.9% with 28-31 seats, which destroys Podemos, down to 5.1% and 3-5 seats.

3. El Mundo/Sigma Dos: "Yolanda Díaz sinks Pedro Sánchez", says the paper’s headline. They award 12.3% of the vote to Sumar if Díaz runs by herself, without Podemos, and 16.3% if Sumar and Podemos run together. In both cases, the PSOE drops to 22%. Vox and the PP would get enough for a right-wing majority in one scenario but not in the other.

4. Electomania/Panel: no impact on the right for Vox after its motion of no confidence against Sánchez. They are stil at 14-15% but there would be a right-wing majority between Feijóo and Abascal. On the left, if they run separately, Sumar takes 8.6% of the vote and leaves Podemos on 5%, with 24.6% for the PSOE. If they run together, the percentages of the vote are similar but the number of seats changes: if they run separately, the PSOE gets 100 seats, Sumar 14 and Podemos 4, for a total of 118 on the left. If Sumar and Podemos run together, the PSOE drops to 82 but Sumar-Podemos gets 47, adding up to 129 for the left in total.

“Sumar” (add up, addition, adding up) is not a bad name on a linguistic and psychological level, to imprint the new political brand in the minds of millions of voters. Between now and the elections, hundreds of journalists will be writing thousands of articles with phrases like "If Sumar and Podemos add up...", “if Díaz adds up with Belarre", "on the left, the PSOE could add up with Sumar…." Every time a reporter or analyst starts writing a sentence that includes "add up, addition, adding up, will add up, could add up, might add up, may possibly add up", Yolanda Díaz will get more points from the collective psyche.

The constant pounding and repetition of very simple names and messages works best for broadcast media and social media notifications buzzing on phones. Add up, add up, add up. And “add up” is a positive label. It is not “subtract”, “divide” or “destroy”, so the underlying brand message contrasts with the prevailing political environment that in the past several years has become increasingly full of polarised nastiness, bickering and mutual hatred. “Add up” is not very far away conceptually from “hope” or “together” and is at least not that age-old generic empty signifier that all politicians everywhere promise voters: “change”. An inherently positive, future-oriented, simplistic brand that will get repeated millions of times in millions of messages between now and the general election.

Mixing such a simplistic concept-name-message with the incentive of the possibility of a first female Prime Minister of Spain in the year 2023 (more hope, more future, more progress), along with a serious, experienced candidate (whatever each voter thinks about her philosophy and politics) could have a huge electoral impact on the left, much more so than the suggestion in these first polls, which at the moment divide and subtract. Could Díaz destroy not only Podemos but also the Socialist Party between now and December? Much has been said, including by himself, arrogantly, about the arrival of the Galician conservative Feijóo in Madrid to become the next Prime Minsiter of Spain, almost automatically, according to that narrative, without effort, but could a female Galician communist be the great electoral surprise of 2023?

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