The elections resulted in a victory, by a narrow margin, for the Popular Front. The Right (in which must now be included the Catalan Lliga) gained 3,997,000 votes, the Popular Front 4,700,000 and the Centre 449,000. To these must be added the Basque Nationalists, with 130,000 votes; this party, though Catholic and Conservative, was to give its adherence to the Popular Front just before the outbreak of the Civil War. But these figures were not reflected in the Cortes. In accordance with the electoral law of 1932 the Popular Front obtained 267 deputies and the Right only 132. The form of suffrage which in the previous election had favoured the Right now accentuated the swing of the balance towards the Left. It gave the Popular Front an overwhelming majority.

The first thing to notice about these elections is the great drop in the Centre vote. The Radicals, who had put up few candidates, were annihilated. Their temporizing policy, ending in the scandals of the straperlo and the Colonial Office, had disgusted their own followers who, alarmed by the Oviedo rising, voted mostly for the Right. The principal group in the Centre block was a new party formed by Manuel Portela Valladares, the leader of the Government which was responsible for the holding of the elections. He had not had time to build up a new party out of the ruin of the Radicals. After attempting at first to fight alone, he had been forced to realize the disadvantages which the electoral law gave to a minority party and in many provinces, at least, had made an electoral pact with the Right. This assisted them by giving them the police ‘protection’ which only a Government can give.