In autumn, together with the administrative and regional elections in Calabria, there will also be two supplementary elections for the same number of vacant seats in Montecitorio.
A first seat has become vacant following the resignation of former economy minister Pier Carlo Padoan : elected in 2018 in the single-member constituency of Siena with the support of the center-left coalition, Padoan left the Chamber at the end of 2020 to become president of Unicredit.
The other supplementary one, that in the Rome-Primavalle college, was instead made necessary following the resignation from the Chamber of Emanuela Del Re (M5S), appointed special envoy of the EU in the Sahel.
After an internal debate, the secretary of the Democratic Party Enrico Lettahe accepted to stand as a candidate for the substitutes in the Siena single-member constituency of the Chamber. There was also talk of a candidacy in Rome-Primavalle by Giuseppe Conte , a candidacy however denied by the former Premier himself.
Center-left and Movimento 5 Stelle would seem willing to present common candidates in both colleges – and therefore, in Siena, Letta would also be supported by the pentastellati.
However, the YouTrend simulation shows that, to date, the outcome of the vote in these two colleges would not be so obvious. In the Siena college the Giallorossi alliance would be more than 5 points ahead of the center-right (46.3% vs 40.7%), while in the Rome-Primavalle college the two sides would be substantially paired between 46 and 47% (center-right: 46.3%; giallorossi: 46.9%).
It is important to note how, compared to the 2019 Europeans and even more than the 2018 policies, the advantage of the Giallorossi over the center-right in both colleges has gradually decreased: in Siena the advantage of the axis between the center-left and the 5 Star Movement has gone from 27 points of the 2018 policies to the 8 of the 2019 Europeans, to get to less than 6 in the YouTrend simulation; similarly, in the Roman college of Primavalle, the advantage went from 25 points of advantage on 4 March 2018 to 6.5 on 26 May 2019, to arrive at a substantial pairing in the current YouTrend simulation.
Of course, the candidacies of national party leaders and not of second-rate exponents of the political scene could certainly help the Giallorossi to win in the two colleges. Much, moreover, will depend on the turnout, which is usually very low for the supplementary ones but this time will be driven upwards by the concurrent administrative elections, scheduled both in Rome and in various municipalities of the Siena college.
* At the 2018 policies, the center-right includes Lega, Forza Italia, Fratelli d’Italia, Noi conItalia; the Giallorossi include 5 Star Movement, Democratic Party, Together, Free and Equal.
** At the 2019 European Championships, the center-right includes Lega, Forza Italia, Fratelli d’Italia; the Giallorossi include the Democratic Party, Movimento 5 Stelle, The Left, Green Europe.
*** The YouTrend simulation was based on an evolution of the Uniform National Swing method: for each party the difference and the relationship between the national result of the European elections and the latest Supermedia of the polls were calculated. On the basis of these data, for each party in each of the two constituencies we then calculated two projections: the first by adding the national difference to the result of the constituency at the 2019 Europeans, the second by multiplying the ratio by the same result of the constituency at the 2019 Europeans. The final projection of each college and the average between these two.
