Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) arrives in the first round of the general election, which takes place this Sunday (2), with a chance of directly winning the dispute. He has 50% of the valid votes, compared to 36% for his main rival, President Jair Bolsonaro (PL). Simone Tebet (MDB) has 6%, technically tied with Ciro Gomes (PDT, 5%).
The scenario, of remarkable stability in recent weeks, was recorded by the last survey by Datafolha before the election. The PT mark is the threshold to reach half plus one of the valid votes, those that exclude blanks and nulls (and undecided, in the case of the survey), the minimum to avoid the second round.
President from 2003 to 2010, Lula crowns a rare comeback: he left the Planalto with more than 80% approval, saw his successor Dilma Rousseff (PT) succeed, lose traction and create an economic and political crisis that cost him the charge.
He was convicted and imprisoned for corruption, only to see the sentences overturned for legal reasons and his tormentor, Sergio Moro, partially judged and fail to be presidential.
Now, the PT is trying to return to power facing a different opponent than the PT was used to until 2018, when Bolsonaro left the fringes of the lower clergy for the presidency with an anti-political and radical right-wing speech. With high rejection, the president is the first of the reelection era not to reach the front on the day of the first round, and fights to go to the second.
The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus two points. The institute interviewed 12,800 people in 310 cities. The survey has the registration BR-00245/2022 at the Superior Electoral Court, and was hired by the Sheet and by TV Globo.
Over the course of the race, the pedestrian saw her usual position in the three previous presidential campaigns she ran almost halved, while the senator debuted maintaining a constant level of support.
Without both in the running, it is possible that Lula was already certain of victory, considering the migration patterns of voting intentions recorded by Datafolha. It is not by chance, especially in the case of Ciro, because he is associated with the center-left, PT strategists did everything they could to encourage a useful vote for the former president.
In the last rounds of Datafolha, Ciro even fluctuated down, but nothing that indicated fatal dehydration. If it does occur, it will now be something to be seen only at the eleventh hour, with the voter at the electronic ballot box. Another central factor in the count is abstention, which historically affects more the electorate associated with the PT.
Stability also shows the limit of the impact of the final debate of the first round, held on Thursday (29) by TV Globo. The clash was quite aggressive, with Lula, Bolsonaro, Ciro and others facing each other in harsh terms. There was no impact on the rejection of the leaders, just a one-point swing upward for the PT.
In the previous round, held from Tuesday (27) to Thursday, Datafolha had measured 50% of voting intentions for the PT party and 36% for the incumbent. 87% say they are sure of the vote, almost all of them for a long time.
This is one of the most relevant phenomena of this electoral campaign, anticipated by many as a clash of complementary rejections —which generated the illusion in the political class that there could be room for the emergence of some competitive third way.
Several names tried to become viable, leaving the relatively unknown Tebet the vacancy. Her stated goal seems to have been achieved: she fluctuated and numerically passed Ciro in this survey. They are even, however.
Below the two, tied at the margin limit with Ciro, are Soraya Thronicke (União Brasil) and Felipe D’Ávila (Novo), both with 1%. Constituent Eymael (DC), Father Kelmon (PTB), Sofia Manzano (PCB), Vera (PSTU) and Leo Péricles (UP) did not score.
There was also the consolidation of the electorate profile. Lula has maintained his leadership so far based on the great advantage he has among the poorest, basing his campaign on the promise of a return to a time of greater economic prosperity — particularly his second term (2007-10), before the debacle that would come under his protected Dilma Rousseff (PT), prevented in 2016.
Here the total votes are evaluated, a metric according to which Lula has 48%, Bolsonaro, 34%, Tebet, 6% and Ciro, 5%.
According to Datafolha, PT arrives on election day with 57% of the total among those who earn up to 2 minimum wages, which are 48% of respondents. Bolsonaro, despite having made several gestures for this group, reducing fuel prices and having gained access to R$41 billion for social spending by the end of the year, marks 26%.
Another stronghold for Lula is the Northeast, the second most populous region with 27% of the electorate. There, he beats Bolsonaro by 62% to 23%. His performance is so strong that he even boosted PT candidates that seemed destined to be slaughtered, as in Bahia, a movement not unlike what happened in 2018, when, for example, the underdog Romeu Zema (Novo) was elected in Minas associated with the phenomenon. Bolsonaro.
There, the intersection of poverty and petismo generates one of the most symbolic data of Bolsonaro’s difficulty this year: most of those who receive Auxílio Brasil, a program that replaced the Bolsa Família associated with Lula, vote for the petista. The region concentrates half of the 20 million families assisted by the action.
More relevant for the former president, however, is his leadership in the Southeast, which accounts for 43% of the Datafolha sample. In the region, he outranks the president by 44% to 37%. Curiously, in 2 of the 3 large colleges there, Rio and Minas, candidates associated with Bolsonarism (Cláudio Castro in Rio and the same Zema, something cool of the president today), are in a favorable position. In the largest electorate, São Paulo, Lula is led by Fernando Haddad (PT).
In large groups, the film seen since the beginning of the campaign followed: women reject voting for Bolsonaro more due to his race record of sexist speeches and the perception, amplified by his denialist handling of the pandemic, that he lacks empathy ( “It’s just a little flu”, “I’m not a gravedigger”). Owner of 52% of the sample, the female electorate prefers Lula, who scores 47%, while the president has 32%.
Bolsonaro even tried to soften the high rejection and bring in First Lady Michelle as his campaign’s poster girl, but it didn’t work. The pendular radicalization of his coup, centered on questioning the electoral system, may not have won votes, but it may have helped to maintain a constant voter intention throughout the year.
For the president, there is also a more favorable position in the income brackets above 2 minimums. In the most voluminous of them, the lower middle class that earns from 2 to 5 salaries and makes up 37% of the sample, he has 41%, compared to 40% for Lula. In the ranges above, he leads, but the margin of error is much wider.
He also maintained in the campaign the advantage among the evangelical electorate, 26% of the ears, where the PT beats by 52% to 30%. The segment is more cohesive than the Catholic majority (55% of the sample) in political terms, in which Lula leads by 54% to 28%.
The final stretch of the dispute can, of course, bring surprises. It is not uncommon for variations that occur at the time of the final vote decision, but the evaluation of the number of undecided people in the spontaneous poll, a good rule for this, shows a high decision rate: only 10% said they did not know who they were going to vote for or refused to vote. answer.
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