The pro-independence parties are holding out in Catalonia despite the strong momentum of the unionists with just hours before the end of the election campaign for 21st December.
Cs, PSC and PP make advances but remain far from an absolute majority, which the pro-independence side could repeat. That's the story revealed by the numbers of the fourth tracking poll on the Catalan election carried out by Feedback and published this Tuesday by The National.
This newspaper has offered new survey results every day since Saturday and will publish two sets tomorrow, Wednesday, the day before the vote. The sample is based on 1,000 interviews. The data collection for these fourth results ended at 4pm this Monday. The first tracking poll was published on Saturday; the second, Sunday and the third on Monday.
Pro-union Ciutadans, with Inés Arrimadas leading their candidacy, consolidate their first place: compared with the previous survey, they guarantee themselves one more deputy, going from 31-33 to 32-33, with 23.97% of the predicted vote.
ERC, the list of imprisoned vice-president Oriol Junqueras, remains in second place with 30-32 seats and a slight improvement in percentage of the vote (from 21.11% to 21.22%).
On the other hand, the JuntsXCat list, led from exile in Brussels by president Carles Puigdemont, moderates its expectations: from 28-29 to 27-29 seats and from 19.48% to 19.09%.
Miquel Iceta's PSC, comfortably installed in fourth place, improve their position: from 18-20 seats in Feedback's last poll to 19-21 (14.67%). In fifth place in the race, CUP, the radical pro-independence left-wing party which has supported the Puigdemont-Junqueras government since 2015 continues downwards: it keeps 9-10 deputies but with its lowest percentage, 7.63%.
The Catalunya En Comú-Podem list, in sixth place, continues to lose steam: it doesn't move from 8-9 deputies, but drops to 6.67% in projected vote, its worst result so far.
The increased presence in the final stretch of the campaign of the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, improves the outlook for his party, PP, which goes from 5-7 seats to 6-7, and from 5.65% to 5.80%. Nonetheless, it stays in last place. The end of the campaign cuts down the distance between the unionist bloc (Cs, PSC and PP) and the pro-independence side (ERC, JuntsXCat and CUP), but without questioning the pro-independence hegemony.
The pro-Spain side goes from a range of 54-60 seats to 57-61, with its highest vote share yet: 44.44%. But in the best case, they stay 7 seats short of an absolute majority in the Parliament (68).
The pro-independence side, meanwhile, drops from 67-71 to 66-71. They could lose their absolute majority achieved in 2015, with 72 seats, but they could equally keep it. Their percentage of the estimated vote (47.94%) is higher than that obtained in the last election (47.80%). The predicted turnout, very high, seems to be reaching its limit: 82.99% (74.95% in 2015). Also very high is the percentage of undecided voters, although it has fallen during the campaign: 23.2%. In absolute terms, 1,288,524 voters.
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