Introduction

I knocked on doors to canvass voters in the United States in the 2024 and 2026 elections. In between, I lived in Spain. The US has just witnessed a historic swing of approximately 15 percentage points towards Democrats in the midterm, with the party winning by a margin not seen since 1976. Spain is also approaching a major election, in which analysts currently project a swing from the incumbent Socialist Party government of Pedro Sánchez to the right-wing People’s Party (PP) and Vox. There is a good chance that the two countries will flip in opposite directions.

This piece argues that although the political systems and likely outcomes are very different in the US and Spain, voters’ concerns are similar. It draws on my direct experience and recent research to explore which issues matter most to voters.

Around the world, voters are changing allegiance more dramatically and in shorter timeframes than before. Those who are highly educated and affluent have often dismissed these swings as voters being uninformed, manipulated by the media, or simply ignorant people (a “basket of deplorables,” in Hilary Clinton’s unforgettable phrase, or, for a Republican alternative, Mitt Romney’s reference to people who are “dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them. […] These are people who pay no income tax. […] And so my job is not to worry about those people”).

But the voters are not lazy, stupid, or ignorant. They are desperate for a real change, and they are reacting to real underlying issues. The electoral campaigns in both countries have highlighted similar concerns that resonate far beyond their borders, encompassing four clear points and four more complex issues.

Four clear points:

• They are worse off in terms of the cost of living.
• Access to housing is a major problem for those who have not benefited from rising house prices.
• They resent increasing corruption and the growing political influence of the rich.
• They worry about artificial intelligence (AI) and want its development slowed and better controlled.

And four more complex issues:

• Views on immigration.
• Feelings about rapid social change.
• Trust in government.
• Foreign policy.

Let’s start with the first four issues, which are clear and widely shared. My personal impressions are anecdotal, but recent research, polling, and investigative reporting tend to back up the idea that these concerns are widespread and reflect underlying real-world problems.

Cost of living and housing

A May-June 2026 Guardian/Harris poll found that 95% of US respondents believe the country has an affordability crisis. In Spain, 55.7% named housing as a national problem in an October 2026 survey by the government-run polling institute, the Center for Sociological Research (CIS). “Crisis económica,” which includes cost of living, is second at 30.3%. Housing is rarely asked as a separate question in US polls, but it shows up when the question is framed around affordability: housing ranks highly among family financial problems, tying with energy for second place below general cost of living.

Real-world underlying trends back up these concerns

The US inflation rate rose from 2.9% in 2024 to estimates exceeding 3.5% in 2026. The Spanish consumer price index rose from around 2.8% in 2024 to over 4% year on year by September 2026. From 2019 to 2024, US median gross rents rose 37.3%. In March 2026, only 23% of homes listed for sale were affordable to households earning 75,000 or less in inflation-adjusted dollars, down from 49% in March 2019. In Spain, annual house prices rose 12.2% through September 2026, and housing stock strongly lags new household formation.

Corruption and inequality are also growing and shared issues

89% of Americans say that corruption is widespread, the highest in two decades and 10 percentage points up on a year earlier. 92% of Spaniards think the same about their country. Until late 2009, after the financial crisis, corruption was an invisible issue in Spain, rarely rising above 1% of poll respondents citing it as a top concern. Going into the November snap election, 28 % of Spaniards list it as a priority issue, third overall behind housing and immigration. 51% of Americans and 50% of Spaniards say that the gap between rich and poor is a growing concern, with a majority in both countries believing that rich people having too much political influence is the main cause.

Again, real-world events back this up

Numerous investigative reporting articles have detailed the conflicts of interest surrounding the increase in the Trump family’s wealth since the beginning of the second Trump presidency. The political influence of billionaires such as Elon Musk has been on overt display during the current administration, and voters on both sides resent it. While Spain’s ruling Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) is betting that housing concerns described above will dominate the November 2026 snap elections, opposition parties are targeting corruption scandals surrounding Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and the PSOE. However, despite the basis for some of these corruption allegations, questions have been raised about their politicization. Officials from the opposition center-right People’s Party (PP) have also been found responsible for systematic graft in several investigations and judicial proceedings.

Artificial intelligence

Both the US and Spain have relatively high rates of AI usage among the population. The percentage of Americans who are “more concerned than excited” about the impact of AI rose from 37 to 50% between 2021 and 2025. The Spanish population has an even higher negative net perception of AI impacts than Americans (-66% to -44%), although Spaniards are less negative than other Europeans. In both cases, the population’s view over the last three to five years aligns with recent research and factual developments. New examples of AI capabilities and risks are coming to light almost every week, such as the Hugging Face incident and the solving of longstanding mathematics challenges, which raises issues about the future evolution of human understanding in this crucial area. There is still no conclusive evidence on the scale of prospective job losses, but there is now a consensus that AI negatively affects young people entering the job market in diverse ways.

So far so clear—voters raise these issues because there are real-world problems that they want their politicians to address.

What about the more complex issues?

Immigration

Canvassing in the US in 2024, I came across many people, including many immigrants, who did not like the immigration policy of recent years: “It is out of control, too many people too fast,” they said; “When we came here, we worked hard, now people are put in hotels.” Data backs them up on the increase in numbers: from 2011 to 2020, there were an average of 434,000 border apprehensions/encounters per year; from 2021 to 2024, numbers more than quadrupled.

By 2026, responses on the doorstop had changed, with the brutal US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on working migrants inside the country appearing to have sucked much of the air out of the issue for the midterms (either because people feel what they wanted was achieved, or because they feel the response was far too harsh, or maybe sometimes both). National polling backs this up: 55% in 2024 wanted decreased immigration, down to 29% now, with 66% wanting either the same levels or an increase.

In Spain, by contrast, unprompted mentions of immigration as a major concern have risen in the last four years, from 4-5% to 15-19% of the population raising the issue in polls. This is perhaps unsurprising, because in 2024 Spain had the largest number of total new immigrants in Europe, and the largest rate when very small countries are excluded. Nonetheless, corruption and access to housing matter more to voters than immigration. Two factors specific to Spain may affect this. First, most migrants are from Latin America and share a language and religion with Spaniards. Second, Spain has a specific issue with tourism, where, for example, the short-term rental platform Airbnb, rather than migrants, is blamed for rising housing prices. This does not mean that immigration is unimportant, but that immigration is part of a wider picture of change.

Social change

In both the US and in Spain, issues of gender equality and transgender rights have become polarizing among voters. Polls in the US reached a peak in favorability to date for women in power, same sex marriage, and gender transitions in 2020-2023, and have since fallen. In Spain, there has been a rapid rise in acceptance of social change on gender and LGBTQ rights (support for same-sex marriage doubled between 2009 and 2026, from 41.9% to over 88%; more than 70% of Spaniards said gender equality had improved in the last ten years to 2024). However, disconnects remain: there was a 15% rise in hate crimes on the basis of sexual and gender identity leading into the 2020s, and recent polls in Spain show that 44% of male respondents and 52% of 16-24-year-old men believe that “gender equality has gone so far that it now discriminates against men.”

It is extremely difficult to attribute reasons for changes in views on social change. While underlying conditions have changed—women in power, the number of self-identified LGBTQ individuals, legislation—political parties have also paid much more attention to these issues in the last ten years, with parties on both the left and right giving them prominence in opposing directions. Which is most important, lived experience or communications, is difficult to untangle. It is also important to note that social change issues have much more salience in politicians’ rhetoric than in voters’ unprompted concerns, remaining at the bottom of priority lists in both countries.

Loss of confidence in politicians and the state

This has been developing for a long time, but it is accelerating—as I’ve seen in my canvassing —driven by views that corruption, covered above, is driving inequality.

In the US, public trust in the federal government fell from around 34% in 2006 to 17% in 2026. In Spain, trust in government declined over the same period, albeit less, remaining at a higher level, from 48% to 43%. Trust in political parties fell even more sharply: from 26% to 12% in the US and from 24% to 8% in Spain. In 2005, only 5% to 7% of Americans spontaneously named “the government or poor leadership” as the nation’s top problem, prioritizing the Iraq War and the economy. By late 2026, that unprompted alarm has quadrupled to 26%, making the government or poor leadership the country’s top non-economic problem. In 2005 in Spain, “politicians and political parties” were practically a non-issue for voters, registering as a top concern for just 2.7% of the population. Today, that spontaneous anger sits stubbornly between 17% and 18.7%, consistently outranking traditional anxieties.

In the US, both Republicans and Democrats also believe that the two main parties have failed to deliver on promises. In 2024, I heard many people say they liked Trump’s ability to “do what he says”—even if they would sometimes agree that what he says is not the right thing to do. They liked his energy and, dare I say it, his aggression, since it channeled an anger many ordinary people felt. By 2026, more people seemed to link Trump’s aggression to the war on Iran and the impact on their gas prices; many also saw that his big campaign promises, on getting America out of foreign wars and making groceries cheaper, have not been delivered. Many voters have also been angry about the Democratic Party not delivering while in power, on jobs and cost of living and on legal pathways for migrants.

In Spain, the incumbent Sánchez Government faces similar perceptions: for example, Spaniards are deeply upset by two successive, deadly high-speed train accidents on the Madrid-Seville line in 2026, which suggest to many that the government was sluggish and uncaring about fixing a problem that has cost many lives.

Wars and foreign policy

There are commonalities in views between US and Spanish voters, but also some key differences. The US-Israeli war with Iran is unpopular with a majority in both countries. In Spanish polling, 68% of respondents believe the US-Iran war has affected them personally, and a majority oppose the US-Israeli strikes. 65% of Americans believed by October 2026 that the war in Iran was a mistake. The immediate link to gas prices has undoubtedly affected public opinion, although in US canvassing, some voters also voice general opposition to foreign wars.

Views on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine diverge, although perhaps not by as much as might be expected. In a 2026 Pew Research Center poll, 20% of Americans believe the US is doing too much to help Ukraine, 26% feel the amount is right, and 29% feel it is not enough. In Spain, the same question finds 14% believing too much is being done, 39% about right, and 37% not enough. Opinions in the US divide along party lines, while in Spain supporters of the mainstream parties share a common position.

On Israel-Palestine, the context in the two countries is very different: Spain has recognized Palestinian statehood and has a strong national movement defending Palestinian rights, while the US has a history of bipartisan solidarity with Israel. In Spain, over 80% view Israel’s actions in Gaza since the October 7 attacks as genocide; this majority is certainly not found in the US. Nonetheless, sentiment is moving in the same direction in both countries. The Gallup tracking poll shows a complete reversal of American sympathies over the last four years. In 2022, 55% of Americans said their sympathies were more with the Israelis, versus 26% who said they were more with the Palestinians (a +29-point advantage for Israel). By 2026, this had reversed, such that 36% said their sympathies were more with the Israelis versus 41% with the Palestinians (sympathy for Palestinians leads by +5 points). The 2026 data marks the first time since Gallup tracking began that net American sympathy favored Palestinians over Israelis.

Conclusions

The national political context differs greatly between the US and Spain: the size of the country, a parliamentary system versus a presidential system, the nature of the incumbent party (including the particular characteristics of President Trump as a leader), and the degree of polarization in political culture.

Yet there are commonalities. The American population has just expressed its strongest voting sentiment in 50 years, repudiating its incumbent leadership. In Spain, the outcome is still uncertain, and Prime Minister Sánchez is known for escaping from political difficulties at the last minute. Yet disappointment in government (rather than enthusiasm in the opposition) is undoubtedly driving much voter sentiment in Spain too.

Despair with incumbent governments on policies, on delivery, and on integrity is becoming a characteristic of elections everywhere (Brazil being a notable exception, although the issues are not irrelevant even there). There is a limit to how many times voters will put their trust in unaccountable and ineffective elites: if mainstream parties are unable to change, extreme parties will grow in power.

All mainstream parties could usefully look at the issues raised in the US and Spanish election campaigns, including voters’ desire to see the following substantive changes:

• Deep social and economic policy shifts to address rising inequality, with a focus on basic goods and access to housing.
• Control over the pace and regulatory parameters for AI.
• Real efforts to prevent and prosecute corruption and capture.
• Immigration policy that is managed yet humane.
• Foreign policy that withdraws from wars of choice while maintaining support against wars of aggression.

In style, parties also need to invest in explaining and discussing complex questions on immigration, social change, and technology adoption with voters. Voters have confounded parties of the left by showing how they do not like fast change without an explanation of why it is happening, the trade-offs, and the eventual benefits—notably on immigration and gender-related change. More recently, they have confounded parties on the right by showing that they do not like the same phenomenon regarding AI and growing inequality. In all of these cases, voters are not ignorant or stupid; they are responding to real changes and risks, where they have a right to ask questions and engage in debate.

This is not, however, where the mainstream parties in the US, Spain, and many other countries currently stand, on either substance or style. In Spain, the mainstream parties’ major outreach seemed to be posters of candidates on lampposts; the right-wing party Vox, by contrast, had local kiosks manned by volunteers in many neighborhoods talking directly to voters. Likewise, the Democratic Party in the US relies on flyers, postcards, and outdated voter databases that target contact only to registered democrats. Some of their newer candidates did reach out to Republican and MAGA voters, and where they did, they won. But traditionally, Democratic Party outreach is only around elections; they do not keep in contact with voters in between. Mainstream parties need to change in both style and substance to regain voter confidence, not only to win elections but to govern successfully.

A subsequent article will explore the options for policies, programs, and electoral promises to deliver this change.