Overview
- Voters head to the polls on 21 December in Extremadura’s first standalone regional election, breaking with Spain’s usual shared calendar.
- Polls place María Guardiola’s PP ahead but short of an outright majority, with the PSOE projected to slump under candidate Miguel Ángel Gallardo’s pending trial.
- The campaign opened with open confrontation between Guardiola and Vox leader Santiago Abascal, underscoring frayed relations and harder bargaining ahead.
- Vox targets gains by consolidating rural support and tapping agrarian discontent over what it calls green overregulation, seeking to remain decisive in the chamber.
- The 2023 contest ended in a PP–PSOE tie and a short‑lived PP–Vox coalition that collapsed, prompting the early election now seen as a bellwether for future right‑wing pacts.