Traders still put Feijóo ahead for Spain's top job

Feijóo's odds rose 7 points in a day after the death of Maricarmen, symbol of Spain's housing protests.

In one line: Feijóo will win a confidence vote and take office after Spain's November election, and the 81% price still underrates him despite the housing crisis.

Maricarmen, the 87-year-old whose eviction from her Madrid flat of more than seven decades set off protests across Spain, died in hospital, HuffPost reported on 8 October. Ara reported the same day that a social outburst, two emergency decrees, a snap election and a general strike followed her case. Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister, said he felt her death as his own. His rival, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, told the parties not to campaign on her death.

Traders pushed Feijóo's odds up, not down. The Polymarket contract on Feijóo becoming the next prime minister stands at 81%. That is up 7 points in the last 24 hours and up from 74% at the last digest on 8 October. Over the 7 days it gained 2 points, from 79% to 81%, but the path ran through a high of 89% on 2 October and a low of 58% on 5 October, and it has climbed 23 points since that low. In the same event, Sánchez's contract sits at 18%, Santiago Abascal's at 1%, and Carlos Cuerpo and Isabel Díaz Ayuso at 0%.

The case for Sánchez is that so public a death lets him make housing his fight. The Guardian asked on 8 October whether he can convince voters he is their best hope for fairer housing. The price suggests traders doubt he can, and this digest reads that doubt as a verdict on his record. No poll in the reporting shows whom voters blame, so that is an inference. The crisis worsened while he governed, and the decrees and the strike belong to his record as much as to his cause. Feijóo's demand to keep her death out of the campaign shows he wants the vote fought on that record.

Feijóo wins a vote of confidence in the Congress of Deputies and is sworn in after the November election, and 81% still underrates him. Winning the most seats is not enough to settle this contract. It pays only when the winner "receive[s] a vote of confidence from the Congress of Deputies and [is] formally sworn-in". The best case against him is that Maricarmen's death rallies Sánchez's voters, and if it does, the 58% low of 5 October was nearer the truth. The call is wrong if the Sánchez contract trades above 50% by mid-December.

Sources