Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Spain’s People’s Party has a 14.4 percentage-point lead over the ruling Socialists ahead of next month’s general election, even as voters gave equal grades to the parties’ leaders for their management, a poll showed.

The PP, led by Mariano Rajoy, may win 46.8 percent of the vote in the Nov. 20 election, compared with 32.4 percent for Socialists, led by Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, according to the poll by the Fundacion Ortega y Gasset institute and the University of Murcia. Voters gave both Rajoy and Rubalcaba a score of 4.5 out of 10 for their management, the poll showed.

The Socialists are battling to retain voters amid the deepest austerity measures in at least three decades and with unemployment running at 21 percent. Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero isn’t seeking re-election and his party chose Rubalcaba, the former deputy prime minister and interior minister, to replace him as its candidate.

A majority of voters expect the economic situation to be the same or worse in a year, according to the poll of 800 people carried out across the country from Sept. 26 to Oct. 4. The survey, directed by Ismael Crespo, the former head of the CIS state polling unit, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

--Editors: Matthew Brockett, Eddie Buckle

To contact the reporter on this story: Emma Ross-Thomas in Madrid at erossthomas@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Craig Stirling at cstirling1@bloomberg.net