Aximage Barómetro Reads PS Roughly Ten Points Clear of the Governing AD in May — Chega Edges Past PSD-CDS Into Second at 23.5% as the Coalition Sheds 8.6 Points Off Its 2025 Legislativas Result

The May reading of the Aximage barómetro for Diário de Notícias, published on Thursday 22 May 2026 and picked up across the Portuguese press, lands the Socialists led by José Luís Carneiro roughly ten percentage points ahead of the governing Aliança Democrática (PSD/CDS-PP), with Chega slipping past the coalition into second place. The reading is the clearest single-month shift in the post-2025 cycle and lands at a moment when the government is trying to push a Labour Code overhaul, a tightened “Return Law” and a Constitutional Court compromise through the Assembleia.

The numbers in the May reading

PS leads the May 2026 barómetro by a margin that, per the published methodology, sits comfortably above the survey’s 4.4 percentage-point margin of error. The headline gap of roughly ten points puts PS in the low thirties on voting intentions. Chega registers 23.5%, taking second place outright. The governing PSD/CDS-PP coalition comes in at 23.2%, falling to third by a 0.3 percentage-point margin — the first time the AD has trailed Chega in the Aximage series since the March 2024 alignment.

The April 2026 reading, published a month earlier by the same pollster, had PS at 30.6%, PSD at 24.3% and Chega at 23.6%. The May print therefore extends the PS lead, drops the PSD-led coalition almost a full point and leaves Chega flat — the swing comes mainly from movement out of the AD column rather than into Chega’s.

How far the AD has fallen from its 2025 legislativas result

The reference point for the coalition’s slide is the result Luís Montenegro’s list delivered at the 2025 legislativas, when the AD picked up 31.8% of the vote and re-formed the government on a confidence-and-supply footing. The May barómetro lands the same coalition at 23.2% in voting intentions — a fall of 8.6 percentage points in roughly a year, with most of that movement concentrated in the months since the spring storm cluster and the Iran-driven energy shock began pulling the 2026 fiscal outlook off the path Brussels had pencilled in.

Why the reading lands now

Three Assembleia files frame the May barómetro. The first is the Labour Code overhaul the government sent to parliament on 19 May, the one the PS has now branded a “contrarreforma” and which Chega’s Conselho Nacional voted unanimously to reject on 22 May. The second is the tightened Return Law on undocumented immigration, where detention periods extend to 18 months and voluntary-departure windows are scrapped. The third is the Constitutional Court standoff, where Seguro’s consultations with the PS and PSD have not yet produced a way through the PSD-Chega arithmetic that has held up new judge appointments.

Each of those files needs either PS or Chega support to clear the Assembleia. The May reading reorders that arithmetic: PS gains room to harden its red lines on the Labour Code without paying a polling cost; Chega keeps its growing centrality to majorities the AD cannot assemble alone; the PSD/CDS-PP coalition is the one whose negotiating leverage has narrowed.

What the trajectory says about the Carneiro PS

The PS reading in the Aximage series has moved up in three consecutive months — from the high twenties in March into the 30.6% April print and into the low thirties in May. That puts the PS, under Carneiro, ahead of the average opposition polling for the early period of the previous PS government and inside the band the party last held in late 2022. The shift is happening without Carneiro making a formal leadership pitch beyond the Concertação Social table he wrapped with CGTP on Friday 22 May; the gains are reading as anti-government rather than pro-PS in tone, which is part of why the Chega number is flat.

What this means for foreign residents

For foreign residents reading the May barómetro, two things matter. First, the immediate legislative pipeline now runs through a parliament where the governing coalition no longer holds the second-largest bloc — files affecting residence permits (the Return Law), housing taxation (the IMT penalty on the IVA-6% scheme) and labour contracts (the 5-year fixed-term framework in the Labour Code) will move through a different vote arithmetic than the one in place at the start of the year. Second, the gap between voting intentions and the AD’s 31.8% election result is now large enough — 8.6 percentage points — that any decision to call early elections becomes harder to justify politically, which extends the runway for the current legislative agenda rather than shortens it.

The next Aximage reading is expected in mid-June.

Sources: Aximage barómetro for Diário de Notícias, May 2026 reading; Observador summary, 22 May 2026; comparison with the April 2026 Aximage reading and the 2025 legislativas result. On the Lei de Política Criminal, DGRSP prison-work, fogos florestais prevention and Assembleia da República criminal-policy-mandate side of the file, our 12 June read on the Assembleia da República greenlighting the Lei de Política Criminal 2026-2028 with the DGRSP prison-crew forest-cleaning mandate, the PSP/GNR pat-down powers in zonas de criminalidade de impacto social, and the priority-crime list headed by arson, organised crime and corruption on the PSD-Chega-IL-CDS yes-block sets the latest reference. On the retirement-age architecture, Pensão de Velhice, Fator de Sustentabilidade, Lei 110/2009 contributory-regime code, Concertação Social and Chega Reforma-65 demand side of the file, our 15 June read on Chega pinning the Reforma-65 demand on a written compromisso from PM Luís Montenegro — calendarised reduction of the Idade Normal de Acesso à Pensão de Velhice to 65, or alternatively a 40-year carreira contributiva, framed as Chega's non-negotiable condition across the Concertação Social calendar and the OE2027 cycle sets the latest reference. On the Portuguese polling, Intercampus / Medialivre barometer, PS-Chega-AD voting-intention triangle and prime-minister preference side of the file, our 19 June read on Intercampus tagging PS at 24.3% ahead of Chega's 20.3% as the AD coalition drops 3.4 points to 19.5% — Medialivre's June barometer reads José Luís Carneiro at 33.8% on the prime-minister preference cut against Montenegro and Ventura sets the latest reference. On the PRR Social Security reform, Prestação Social Única, Rendimento Social de Inserção, Código das Prestações Sociais, Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho and 31 August 2026 milestone side of the file, our 19 June read on Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho pulling the Código das Prestações Sociais from the PRR reform track — the €5.193 billion final tranche now pivots on the 13-benefit Prestação Social Única alone sets the latest reference. On the Prestação Social Única, welfare-access, residency-rule and immigration-politics side of the file, our read on PSD and CDS moving to double the non-EU residency bar to two years for the new Prestação Social Única sets the latest reference.