Polls place Bolsonaro close to Lula in a high-risk scenario

In the second round of the 2014 Brazilian presidential elections, the closest until now, a man stood before the electronic ballot box with a visible badge of the leftist Dilma Rousseff but voted for the conservative Aécio Neves.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
23 October 2022 Sunday 16:30
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Polls place Bolsonaro close to Lula in a high-risk scenario

In the second round of the 2014 Brazilian presidential elections, the closest until now, a man stood before the electronic ballot box with a visible badge of the leftist Dilma Rousseff but voted for the conservative Aécio Neves. The voter was former president José Sarney, who, despite his party's alliance with Rouseff, opted for the rival, out of "gratitude" with his grandfather, Tancredo Neves, who was second to him . Such outlandish behavior must be rare. Otherwise they would lead to the total collapse of the highly pressed polling companies. After the resounding ruling in the first round to the detriment of the president, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro, he is now placed very close to his rival, the leftist Lula da Silva.

The average of polls from the Estado de São Paulo newspaper shows 52% for Lula and 48% for Bolsonaro, which coincides with the latest data from Datafolha, the best-known polling institute. In the environment, the around 8 points less that they attributed to Bolsonaro in the first round weigh, in which they even left him for dead, predicting that his opponent would exceed 50. In the end he stayed at 48%. An exercise with a certain logic would be to attribute the two points of margin of error to Bolsonaro. He would have a draw, although there is a risk of falling into the opposite mistake to the one made three weeks ago, by wanting to compensate it.

Lula, who turns 77 on Thursday, ten years older than his rival, continues to be the favourite, not only because he is ahead in the polls, although he is no longer a dozen or more points ahead. Above all, it is because he won the first round with a margin of five points, in a vote in which he and Bolsonaro had 91% of the votes. Contrary to what is usual in the second round, there is little support to look for among the main eliminated candidates. They support Lula, but the polls predict that his voters go their own way.

In this scenario, participation emerges as key, although in Brazil it fluctuates little, four or five points around 80%. And in the second round it is usually less, because the congressional candidates are no longer pulling the electorate as in the first, just like the governors already elected.

In a pitched battle, which has flooded the high courts of appeals for advertising with false news and other tricks, and which has also become a championship for who does the direct on YouTube with the most audience, the two presidential candidates attack on all fronts . They try to collect the vote of the eliminated candidates, attract abstentionists, demobilize rival voters or even convert them.

This complex maneuver has its epicenter in the second most populous state, Minas Gerais. In the first round, Lula won, with a result very similar to the national one, as usually happens. The elected governor, Romeu Zema, has broken his neutrality to support Bolsonaro, who seeks to convince those who voted for his partner and Lula.

Minas is part, like Rio and São Paulo, of the Southeast region, which has 43% of the census and is more prone to Bolsonaro, with the giant from São Paulo as the axis of the dispute. In addition, the president is trying to improve his poor results in the Northeast, which has 27% of the census and is the great bastion of a Lula who is trying to squeeze more of it.

On Friday there will be the last television debate. In the one from eight days ago, a more trained Bolsonaro was seen to not let go of his daily barbarities and grew up after the first round. Although he took good advantage of the president's nonsense in the pandemic, Lula showed that he was not at his best, as if this rather unexpected second shift weighed on him.

He sought victory at first, believing that in the second round there is a greater risk that Bolsonaro will not accept defeat. This, on Friday, he again conditioned it to the audit of the count made by the military, of whose content nothing is known. "If nothing is found, there is no need to be suspicious," he said, later insisting that on the streets you can see that he is much more supported. There are three scenarios: that Lula clearly wins, that Bolsonaro gives another surprise and wins, or that he loses and emulates Trump.