Brazil elections 2022: Brazil’s General Heleno questions “poll” by investment company XP

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s Minister of the GSI (Cabinet of Institutional Security), General Augusto Heleno, on Sunday (24) questioned the results of the XP/Ipespe “electoral poll”, which show that former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (left-wing Worker’s Party PT) leads the electoral race by 14 percentage points over conservative/patriotic Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

Find the full poll here.

“Why is one of the largest independent investment firms funding an IPESPE survey? In a country of 149 million voters, it surveyed only 1,000 (one thousand) by telephone. An overwhelming victory for Lula da Silva(?). And the “result” is then distributed to the press.”

The XP/Ipespe poll, published last Friday (22), shows that Lula gets 45% of the electoral votes in the first round, while Bolsonaro gets 31%. In third place comes Ciro Gomes (PDT) with 8%.

Former São Paulo governor João Doria (PSDB) gained 3%. Simone Tebet (MDB) and André Janones (Avante) each scored 2%. The others did not even reach 1% of the voting intention.

7% said they would vote “blank”, “invalid” or “none”. Another 2% did not or could not respond.

The poll surveyed 1,000 people by telephone between April 18 and 20, 2022, in all regions of Brazil. The margin of error is 3.2 percentage points more or less, with a confidence interval of 95.5%.

The registration of the survey with the TSE (Supreme Electoral Tribunal) is BR-05747/2022. The study cost R$42,000 (US$8,750) and was funded by XP Investimentos.

Given the more than modest investment in the “survey” and the polling of just 1,000 people, one has to wonder about the intentions of XP Investimentos.

If XP Investimentos wants to outperform its already established competitor BTG Pactual Investment Bank as a poller, why not go all the way? Why don’t you show that you take the matter seriously?  Why risk its reputation over something like this? What are the interests between the left and XP? Are there promises, or agreements?

And there will be some who could now say with good reasons that XP creates “false” figures through a qualitatively insufficient survey and then sells them via the press as “correct” figures. Isn’t that the original definition of misinformation?

The fact that General Heleno is personally taking care of this case proves that XP has kicked a hornet’s nest.

But back to the “poll”.

In the second round, Lula got 54% of the votes versus 34% for the current president. This is a difference of 20 points.

Lula da Silva won in all scenarios of the second round in which his name was tested. In a possible direct confrontation with Ciro Gomes, Lula has 52% versus 24% for the former governor of Ceará. Between Lula and João Doria (PSDB), the former president’s lead grows to 19 percentage points: 55% versus 36%.

Bolsonaro would lose to Ciro Gomes in the second round with an 8 percentage point difference: 46% x 38%. In the scenario with the current president and Doria, there is a technical tie: 39% x 38%.

PODER DATA

The latest FSB/BTG survey (25) shows that the former president fell two percentage points compared to last month, still within the margin of error, which is two percentage points. He had 43%, from the current 41%. Bolsonaro rose three points: from 29% to 32%.

Even more important however is the poll conducted by PoderData, an established name in the Brazilian polling business and one of the few with a clean reputation, from April 10 to 12, 2022, showed the smallest difference between Lula and Bolsonaro in the first round in 2022: 5 percentage points.

Leftist Lula da Silva has 40% versus 35% of the current conservative president Bolsonaro. In the 2nd round, the result is 47% for Lula da Silva and 38% for Bolsonaro.

The poll was conducted by PoderData, a company of the Poder360 Jornalismo Group, with its own resources at a cost of R$103,715.00 (US$21,600). Journalists spend almost three times more than bankers for a poll. That makes you think.

Data were collected from April 10 to 12, 2022, through calls to cell phones and landlines. 3,000 interviews were conducted in 322 cities in the 27 states of the Federation.

The margin of error is 2 percentage points. The confidence interval is 95%. The registration with the TSE is BR-00368/2022.

SURVEY AGGREGATOR

Poder360 maintains an archive of thousands of surveys whose methodology is known and for which the origin of the information could be verified.

There are surveys that have been conducted since the 2000 municipal elections. It is the largest and longest electoral survey available on the Brazilian Internet.