Young men in Spain love the hardline Vox
They find the rough populism of the far right appealing
This has already been quite a year for Santiago Abascal, the leader of Vox. In January he was the only Spanish politician (and one of very few Europeans) to be invited to Donald Trump’s inauguration. The next month, as president of the Patriots for Europe grouping, he hosted in Madrid a gathering of hard-right leaders from across Europe, including Viktor Orban of Hungary and Marine Le Pen of France. And after years of gently declining support from a peak of 15% in a general election in November 2019, since September Vox has steadily revived in the opinion polls from around 10.5% to over 14% (see chart). Among Spanish men aged under 25 Vox is now the leading party, and among males under 45 it enjoys more support than the mainstream conservative People’s Party (PP).
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This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Battle on the right”
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