RIO DE JANEIRO – Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s advantage in voting intended for the October 2 presidential election over the current president, Jair Bolsonaro, rose by two points in the past week, and is likely to be the first. Round will be selected.
Ten days before the most polarizing elections in Brazilian history, the progressive leader has 47% partisanship, compared to 33% for the far-right leader, according to a poll released this Thursday by the firm Datafolha. With the former president increased his advantage over the current head of state from 12 to 14 percentage points.
The largest poll ever conducted by the country’s main polling firm (listed for 6,754 voters in 343 cities between Tuesday and Thursday) shows that Lula’s vote intentions increase by two percentage points compared to last week’s 45%. while Bolsonaro, who is running for re-election, held steady at 33%.
According to Datafolha, whose polling has a double-digit error, the result left the leader of the Workers’ Party (PT) with the possibility of being elected without the need for a second round, which is scheduled for an event on 30 October. No candidate receives more than half of the valid votes.
This is due to the fact that, taking into account valid votes, that is, by excluding the blank and void ones, the intention to vote in Lula increased from 48% last week to 50% in the poll concluded this Thursday, while Bolsonaro remained at 35%.
The strategy of the former president (2003–2010) in the final days of the campaign has been to seek “useful votes” from voters who are still betting on third candidates to guarantee their election in the first round.
Lula’s campaign is appealing for the support of Labor voters, Ciro Gomes, the third-highest-voted candidate in the 2018 presidential elections, and whose intention to vote fell from 8% last week to the current 7%, and that of Senator Simone Tebate. Candidate. The main center parties in the country and whose partisanship remained stagnant at 5%.
Of the eleven contesting presidential elections, only one other candidate manages to participate in the election. It is Senator Soraya Thronike, the candidate of the right-wing Union of Brasil, whose vote fell from the intended 2% to 1%.
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For demographic data analyst Mauro Paulino, the rise in Lula’s vote intent and the decline in Ciro Gomes and Thronike make it clear that the former union leader’s strategy of seeking “useful votes” to define the trial in the first round succeeded. Stayed.
“The result shows that voters are already opting for a useful vote, but what is going to define whether or not Lula is elected in the first round will be the level of abstinence. If the voters are united so that If the trial is settled on October 2, Lula will be able to get more than half of the valid votes, but the high level of absence could harm her,” said the analyst.
Datafolha also copied the second round and confirmed Lula’s bias. As of this week’s polling, if a ballot is required, the progressive leader will be elected with 54% of the vote, while the far right will receive 38%.
This likely also reflects the disapproval rate of candidates, because according to this week’s poll, 52% of Brazilian voters say they would not vote for Bolsonaro in any way and 39% say the same about Lula. .
