2023 Spanish general election

A general election was held in Spain on Sunday, 23 July 2023, to elect the members of the 15th Cortes Generales under the Spanish Constitution of 1978. All 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies were up for election, as well as 208 of 266 seats in the Senate. It was the first time since 1839 that a general election in Spain was held in the month of July.

The second government of Pedro Sánchez formed after the November 2019 Spanish general election consisted of a left-wing coalition between the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and Unidas Podemos, the country's first such nationwide government since the Second Spanish Republic. The government's tenure was quickly overshadowed by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, along with its political and economic consequences (including the economic recession resulting from the extensive lockdowns implemented to curb the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus), as well as the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (which exacerbated an ongoing inflation surge) and the 2021 volcanic eruption in La Palma. The opposition People's Party (PP) saw party leader Pablo Casado being replaced by Galician president Alberto Núñez Feijóo after an internal push in February 2022 by Madrilenian president Isabel Díaz Ayuso, a rising star within the party following her 2021 regional election victory. Far-right Vox had been supporting PP-led cabinets at the regional and local level in exchange for programmatic concessions and—eventually—government participation; whereas the liberal Citizens party, which had lost most of its support since 2019, chose not to run.

Despite speculation about a snap election, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez consistently expressed his intention to complete his term as scheduled in 2023, after the Spanish presidency of the Council of the European Union. Poor results of the left-wing bloc in the May 2023 regional and local elections, with losses to the PP and Vox in all but three regions, led to a surprise early dissolution of parliament in what was described as a gamble by Sánchez to wrong-foot the opposition and prevent a six-month lame duck period. In the closest election since 1996, the PP saw the biggest increase in support and secured 137 seats in the Congress, but fell short of expectations which had placed it at around 150 to 160 seats. The PSOE placed second and overperformed polls by improving upon previous results, gaining over one million votes and scoring its best result since 2008 in terms of votes and vote share. Vox saw a decrease in its popular vote and seats, while the Sumar platform under second Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz—the successor of the Unidas Podemos alliance after the resignation of Pablo Iglesias in 2021—won 31 seats in the Congress, a decrease in the popular vote and seats of its constituent parties but also above expectations going into the election.

As neither bloc achieved a majority, the balance of power was held by the Together for Catalonia (Junts) party of former Catalan president and fugitive Carles Puigdemont, despite losses among Catalan independence parties. Following a failed attempt by Feijóo to secure investiture in the ensuing government formation process, Sánchez struck a deal with Junts and most of the parliamentary regionalist and peripheral nationalist parties, going on to win re-election on 16 November with an absolute majority: the first time since 2011 that a repeat election was not needed, as well as the first time since that date that a candidate was elected in the first ballot of investiture.