Brazil: Lula da Silva and Bolsonaro tied among those who say they will vote

A PoderData survey conducted October 3-5 shows that Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party – PT, left) and Bolsonaro (Liberal Party – PL, right) are tied numerically among voters who are sure they will leave home to vote in the runoff.

In this public, the PT candidate and the current president score 47% of the votes, while 5% would vote blank or null. Another 2% are undecided.

Lula da Silva, however, benefits if the election includes those who today are uncertain about their turnout. In the group of those who think they can vote but are not sure (5% of all voters), da Silva has 64% of voting intentions.

The abstention rate is a decisive factor in Brazilian elections. In a rounded way, about 70% of those who fail to vote are low-income voters.

That is, the demographic group that shows sympathy for Lula da Silva. In this scenario, the more people leave home to vote, the better it is for Lula.

The survey was conducted by PoderData, with resources from Poder360, through calls to cell phones and landlines. There were 3,500 interviews in 301 cities in the 27 units of the Federation from October 3 to 5, 2022. The margin of error is 1.8 percentage points for a 95% confidence interval.

Among the general electorate, Lula has 52% of the valid votes against 48% for Bolsonaro. Read more here.

GENERAL OVERVIEW

An overwhelming majority (92%) of voters say they will “definitely” vote in the runoff. Those who may go but are not sure are 5%. Only 2% of voters say they will not leave home to vote on October 30, and 1% did not know the answer.

However, voters tend to respond more based on their intention to vote than on an objective assessment of whether they will vote or not – which involves contingent factors, such as weather conditions, safety, and availability of public transportation.

Polls showed that something close to 90% of voters said they were sure they would vote; the final abstention rate, however, was 20.95% in the first round on October 2.

The survey should be read as an indication of voter perception.

In this sense, it shows a correlation between voter turnout and Lula da Silva’s performance in the polls: if more people go out to vote, da Silva tends to score more.

While Bolsonaro has close to him a more engaged voter who is more willing and able to go to the polls -and with more resources to do so, considering that the president scores better among higher-income voters- Lula is the preferred candidate of people still evaluating whether they will leave home.

This public is limited to 5% of the electorate, but the first round of voting indicates that the runoff will be closely fought.

With information from Poder360