Spain's conservatives put trust in Feijóo, the boring guy who wins every election by a landslide

abcnews.go.com:

Those who know him in Spain say that Alberto Núñez Feijóo doesn't enter a political battle unless he has almost every chance of winning

BARCELONA, Spain — BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the conservative politician who polls suggest is poised to become Spain’s next prime minister, likes to recall that at heart, he is just a mild-mannered “village boy” from the country’s rural northwest. A humble, forthright, even boring guy, as he likes to describe himself.

The conservative Popular Party candidate for Sunday's general election is mostly unknown outside Spain, but he has been the country's most solid regional leader so far this century and has never lost an election. Feijóo was a political steamroller during the 13 years in which he governed Spain’s northwestern Galicia region, the homeland of 20th-century dictator Francisco Franco and of former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who ran Spain from 2011-2018 as PP's leader.

Feijóo took power as Galicia's regional president in 2009 and accumulated four absolute majorities until 2022, when he resigned to head for Madrid with the mission to save his party from the biggest leadership crisis in its history.

Feijóo has forged his public image as a no-nonsense manager. In his view, he is the antithesis of Spain's current Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, whom Feijóo accuses of saying or doing anything to cling to office.

“Feijóo is a seasoned politician, a good manager, who does not draw attention to himself either for good or for bad, and that can even be positive," said Miguel Anxo Bastos, professor of political science at University of Santiago de Compostela (USC). “He does not have a very marked ideological agenda, but he is more progressive than his party.