Brazilian presidential and general elections 2022 (1st round: October 2nd, 2nd round: October 30th)

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Who's voting Lula/right-wing parties for Congress?

I mean, it’s like how Rs, even known crazies, outperformed trump.

As HSTruman just remarked on Discord: "broke: eternal 2016 primary; woke: eternal 2020 general election"

[adma]

What's the cause of this shift away from class-based voting? Are there cultural or demographic vectors that have become more salient, like in the rich world?

Obama/Trump vs Romney/Clinton, Rio style.

[omar04]

I think it's very important to zoom-out from the number-crunching and campaign minutiae when discussing the 1st round results:

• Some eight years ago, Dilma's government engaged in extremely stupid heterodox meddling in central bank operations right around the time that commodity prices fell off of a cliff. Brazil's economy suffered a massive increase in unemployment and a burst of inflation. It has yet to recover from this severe recession. People continue to talk about "nostalgia" for Lula's presidency but this period is remembered by far more voters and it will tend to be attributed to...the PT and even Lula.
• Subsequently, Dilma Rousseff was impeached from office on trumped-up charges that anyone reasonable would view as being a soft "coup d'etat". There, was quite literally, an orchestrated campaign against her and those behind the campaign imposed radical constitutional reforms, and austerity on Brazil.
• Shortly after this, Lula was barred from running for President and imprisoned as part of an orchestrated campaign to throw the election towards the right. He was released from prison three years ago.
• In the election that Lula was barred from running in, the left was reduced to a rump and Haddad was crushed by over a ten point margin against a candidate widely despised by Brazilians. Just about anyone else would have made the election close, Ciro Gomes could have defeated Bolsonaro.
• Two years ago, it was considered a "good performance" that Boulos lost Sao Paulo mayoral election by 20 points and that Manuela d'Avila lost by 10 points in Porto Alegre. This, more or less, was a repeat of Haddad's disastrous performance. Lula won both cities by 10 points tonight.

Lula and, by extension, PT, PSOL and associated allies have risen from the dead to remain the only relevant opposition to fascist-flavored right-wing populism in Brazil. Lula was in prison. He will probably be President. Anyone who fails to see this as one of history's great comebacks is far too focused on the present, cannot see the big picture.

The one caveat to keep in mind is that if Lula was allowed to run in 2018, all of this could have been avoided. He probably would have crushed Bolsonaro, albeit not to the extent that polls predicted. He probably would have been lauded for his response to the pandemic simply because he wouldn't have implied that people dying of COVID are congenital weaklings deserving of such a fate. He then would have likely sailed to an easy re-election, in spite of all of the recent turbulence in the world. The main actors in Brazil responsible for this nightmare are Sergio Moro and elements in the judiciary that are crooked and vile. Bolsonaro is horrible, yes, but he was enabled by them and likely couldn't have become President without them...

Why did Haddad perform so badly in 2018 relative to any other potential candidate?

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

Who's voting Lula/right-wing parties for Congress?

I mean, it’s like how Rs, even known crazies, outperformed trump.

As HSTruman just remarked on Discord: "broke: eternal 2016 primary; woke: eternal 2020 general election"

Didn't know he was even around, I thought he quit atlas entirely after the Atlasia fiasco

[Vosem]

I think it's very important to zoom-out from the number-crunching and campaign minutiae when discussing the 1st round results:

• Some eight years ago, Dilma's government engaged in extremely stupid heterodox meddling in central bank operations right around the time that commodity prices fell off of a cliff. Brazil's economy suffered a massive increase in unemployment and a burst of inflation. It has yet to recover from this severe recession. People continue to talk about "nostalgia" for Lula's presidency but this period is remembered by far more voters and it will tend to be attributed to...the PT and even Lula.
• Subsequently, Dilma Rousseff was impeached from office on trumped-up charges that anyone reasonable would view as being a soft "coup d'etat". There, was quite literally, an orchestrated campaign against her and those behind the campaign imposed radical constitutional reforms, and austerity on Brazil.
• Shortly after this, Lula was barred from running for President and imprisoned as part of an orchestrated campaign to throw the election towards the right. He was released from prison three years ago.
• In the election that Lula was barred from running in, the left was reduced to a rump and Haddad was crushed by over a ten point margin against a candidate widely despised by Brazilians. Just about anyone else would have made the election close, Ciro Gomes could have defeated Bolsonaro.
• Two years ago, it was considered a "good performance" that Boulos lost Sao Paulo mayoral election by 20 points and that Manuela d'Avila lost by 10 points in Porto Alegre. This, more or less, was a repeat of Haddad's disastrous performance. Lula won both cities by 10 points tonight.

Lula and, by extension, PT, PSOL and associated allies have risen from the dead to remain the only relevant opposition to fascist-flavored right-wing populism in Brazil. Lula was in prison. He will probably be President. Anyone who fails to see this as one of history's great comebacks is far too focused on the present, cannot see the big picture.

The one caveat to keep in mind is that if Lula was allowed to run in 2018, all of this could have been avoided. He probably would have crushed Bolsonaro, albeit not to the extent that polls predicted. He probably would have been lauded for his response to the pandemic simply because he wouldn't have implied that people dying of COVID are congenital weaklings deserving of such a fate. He then would have likely sailed to an easy re-election, in spite of all of the recent turbulence in the world. The main actors in Brazil responsible for this nightmare are Sergio Moro and elements in the judiciary that are crooked and vile. Bolsonaro is horrible, yes, but he was enabled by them and likely couldn't have become President without them...

Why did Haddad perform so badly in 2018 relative to any other potential candidate?

It's more that Lula is a very strong candidate than Haddad having been a weak one; if anything when you consider how much Dilma had become reviled Haddad actually performed quite strongly. DFB's point that Brazilian politics has polarized into a battle between PT-ism and Bolsonarismo, and so Lula (and his party) are the only real opposition, is true and was already substantially true by 2018.

[Crumpets]

More maps!

https://twitter.com/PopulismUpdates/status/1576735582486601730

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

I think it's very important to zoom-out from the number-crunching and campaign minutiae when discussing the 1st round results:

• Some eight years ago, Dilma's government engaged in extremely stupid heterodox meddling in central bank operations right around the time that commodity prices fell off of a cliff. Brazil's economy suffered a massive increase in unemployment and a burst of inflation. It has yet to recover from this severe recession. People continue to talk about "nostalgia" for Lula's presidency but this period is remembered by far more voters and it will tend to be attributed to...the PT and even Lula.
• Subsequently, Dilma Rousseff was impeached from office on trumped-up charges that anyone reasonable would view as being a soft "coup d'etat". There, was quite literally, an orchestrated campaign against her and those behind the campaign imposed radical constitutional reforms, and austerity on Brazil.
• Shortly after this, Lula was barred from running for President and imprisoned as part of an orchestrated campaign to throw the election towards the right. He was released from prison three years ago.
• In the election that Lula was barred from running in, the left was reduced to a rump and Haddad was crushed by over a ten point margin against a candidate widely despised by Brazilians. Just about anyone else would have made the election close, Ciro Gomes could have defeated Bolsonaro.
• Two years ago, it was considered a "good performance" that Boulos lost Sao Paulo mayoral election by 20 points and that Manuela d'Avila lost by 10 points in Porto Alegre. This, more or less, was a repeat of Haddad's disastrous performance. Lula won both cities by 10 points tonight.

Lula and, by extension, PT, PSOL and associated allies have risen from the dead to remain the only relevant opposition to fascist-flavored right-wing populism in Brazil. Lula was in prison. He will probably be President. Anyone who fails to see this as one of history's great comebacks is far too focused on the present, cannot see the big picture.

The one caveat to keep in mind is that if Lula was allowed to run in 2018, all of this could have been avoided. He probably would have crushed Bolsonaro, albeit not to the extent that polls predicted. He probably would have been lauded for his response to the pandemic simply because he wouldn't have implied that people dying of COVID are congenital weaklings deserving of such a fate. He then would have likely sailed to an easy re-election, in spite of all of the recent turbulence in the world. The main actors in Brazil responsible for this nightmare are Sergio Moro and elements in the judiciary that are crooked and vile. Bolsonaro is horrible, yes, but he was enabled by them and likely couldn't have become President without them...

Why did Haddad perform so badly in 2018 relative to any other potential candidate?

It's more that Lula is a very strong candidate than Haddad having been a weak one; if anything when you consider how much Dilma had become reviled Haddad actually performed quite strongly. DFB's point that Brazilian politics has polarized into a battle between PT-ism and Bolsonarismo, and so Lula (and his party) are the only real opposition, is true and was already substantially true by 2018.

This was not inevitable after Bolsonaro won though. Throughout 2020, there was talk about "Huck" and other alternatives to Bolsonaro. Many state governors provided foils to Bolsonaro. Lula's entry into the race probably foreclosed upon this. In the end, I suspect that Bolsonaro would win against anyone but Lula because he could probably juice Nordeste with bribes and the non-Lula, anti-Bolsonaro candidate may well have even lost Pernambuco. Of course, we'll never know but I think it's instructive that the right is capable of doing okay in, say, Bahia if Lula isn't a candidate...

[Adam Griffin]

Whoever had that 48% prediction did a great job.

With 99,55% counted the Lula lead finally reaches 5%. Whoever said between 5% - 5,5% in the final result was spot on.

While I know jack-s[inks]t about Brazil, it's pretty easy to keep a relatively accurate running projection once a handful of votes start being counted (i.e. serving in place of "the needle" or other ET prognosticators on Election Night anywhere). Perhaps my refined projections will be off margin-wise by a few tenths of a point at most, but whatever: I stand by my efforts. It's not hard to more or less project even early on when you're monitoring every update and have at least a cursory understanding of what's outstanding.

If even this trend continues - ignoring more favorable Lula areas remaining outstanding - Lula will be in the lead by 2-3 points minimum in the end. Bolsonaro may overperform polling expectations, but it's not difficult to see Lula getting 47-48%+ in the end.

One thing I wonder about: currently, precincts reporting (%) relative to counted vote suggests 120.1m voter turnout - but it was 117m in the first round last time and 114m in the second round. Surely Brazil has grown enough since and general polarization effects would lift this number higher? If we're looking at 125-130m turnout, then it's possible Lula has a bit more breathing room to avoid a runoff (though still unlikely, and obviously depends on where any potential turnout surge originates).

Looks like Lula should overtake Bolsonaro when 65-67% of precincts are reporting - and if current trends hold, it's on track for a Lula win of 2-3 points (46.5-47.5%). Still reason to think what's left should be more favorable to Lula than what has been counted, so 48%+ is possible.

66.66% Reporting

BOLSONARO- 35,360,274 (45.69%)
LULA- 35,246,748 (45.55%)

On track for 48.1% minimum (assuming what remains is no more pro-Lula than what has been counted, which I assume it will be even more favorable to Lula).

Looking like a 5-point win for Lula at this point (48.3-43.3).

117.4m in the first round in 2018; we're on track for 123.8m (another ~900k to count) this time. Bolsonaro will probably do around 2m raw votes better out of 6m+ extra cast this time.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

A possible reason for the split-ticket statistics is that people blame PT but not Lula for the economic trainwreck.

Anyway, do you guys think Lula wins on the 30th?

[Adam Griffin]

Here's a question for our Brazilians.

The sub judice category of votes (Anulados Sub Judice) which currently shows 0: is this a future matter of addition or deduction? In other words, are votes currently counted for candidates likely to be annulled, or are all votes in this category currently not being reported at all, and therefore likely to surface in the coming days?

If I projected USA standards of how "provisional" ballots work and assuming one of the two above options apply, this could further shift the margin by 100k votes in either direction (to be fair, the current margin with 99.99% of electoral districts reporting is 6185k votes, so it may not be a lot in the grand scheme of things). Regardless of US bias and coalition differences in Brazil, I imagine an addition scenario would help Lula (given I can't see how it wouldn't disproportionately impact poorer and more rural voters), while a deduction scenario would help Bolsonaro.

[Antonio the Sixth]

States with over 60% of votes counted:

Distrito Federal (92%): Lula +6.79 from Haddad 2R
Espirito Santo (89%): Lula +3.27
Mato Grosso do Sul (84%): Lula +3.09
Tocantins (76%): Lula -1.79
Paraná (65%): Lula +3.56

So if these results hold we are looking for Lula around 48% or so nationwide.

Called it when 35-40% of the vote was in nationwide and Bolsonaro was still leading by 3-4 points. Not bad.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Looking at the polling trendlines, Lula ended up exactly as expected, while Bolsonaro overperformed by around 7 points. So it seems like he swept the undecideds and got the votes of a few people who said they'd vote third party (Gomes underperformed by 2 points and Tebet by 1). Perhaps because of a social desirability bias against telling pollsters you support Bolsonaro? Brazilian posters let me know if that's a thing.

[Intell]

Looking at the polling trendlines, Lula ended up exactly as expected, while Bolsonaro overperformed by around 7 points. So it seems like he swept the undecideds and got the votes of a few people who said they'd vote third party (Gomes underperformed by 2 points and Tebet by 1). Perhaps because of a social desirability bias against telling pollsters you support Bolsonaro? Brazilian posters let me know if that's a thing.

It's probably the case that Bolsanaro supporters of all social class, particularly less educated are less likely to answer pollsters than Lula supporters.

[jaichind]

Looking at these results it seems had Lula not run then Bolsonaro would have won re-election in the second round.

[President Johnson]

I never bought Bolsonaro would be under 40%, though he even outdid my prediction here. Polls underestimated him. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

This really feels like US 2020 redux.

[DavidB.]

Brazilian pollsters should take this as a lesson to not take "undecided" for an answer or at the very least not count them as "part of the 100%".

[Antonio the Sixth]

Brazilian pollsters should take this as a lesson to not take "undecided" for an answer or at the very least not count them as "part of the 100%".

I mean, if they hadn't counted them as "part of the 100%" there would have been more polls showing Lula over 50%, which would have made the polling miss look much worse optically. I think showing the undecided share is actually the sounder thing to do methodologically too, as it implies a greater degree of uncertainty.

[Mike88]

In the congress elections, Bolsonaro allies seem poised to hold on to a majority, although very, very slim:

Chamber of Deputies:

  99 PL
  59 União Brasil
  47 PP
  41 Republicans
  12 Podemos
258 Bolsonaro allies (50.3%)
  80 PT
  14 PSOL/REDE
  14 PSB
108 Lula allies (21.1%)
  42 MDB
  42 PSD
  18 PSDB
  17 PDT
  28 Others

Senate:

13 PL
12 União Brasil
  7 PP
  6 Podemos
  3 Republicans
41 Bolsonaro allies (50.6%)
  9 PT
  1 REDE
  1 PSB
11 Lula allies (13.6%)
10 PSD
10 MDB
  4 PSDB
  2 PDT
  1 Cidadania
  2 Others

I think that the allies numbers seem correct, but feel free to correct them if there's some mistake in a party support

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

So to my Brazil peeps, what's the general mood in the nation as the dust settles from the first round?

Joy? Fear? Something else?

[Antonio the Sixth]

In the congress elections, Bolsonaro allies seem poised to hold on to a majority, although very, very slim:

Chamber of Deputies:

  99 PL
  59 União Brasil
  47 PP
  41 Republicans
  12 Podemos
258 Bolsonaro allies (50.3%)
  80 PT
  14 PSOL/REDE
  14 PSB
108 Lula allies (21.1%)
  42 MDB
  42 PSD
  18 PSDB
  17 PDT
  28 Others

Senate:

13 PL
12 União Brasil
  7 PP
  6 Podemos
  3 Republicans
41 Bolsonaro allies (50.6%)
  9 PT
  1 REDE
  1 PSB
11 Lula allies (13.6%)
10 PSD
10 MDB
  4 PSDB
  2 PDT
  1 Cidadania
  2 Others

I think that the allies numbers seem correct, but feel free to correct them if there's some mistake in a party support

Eeeesh. That is brutal.

Of course afaik Brazilian party allegiances are rather fluid and usually elected Presidents manage to cobble together a governing majority regardless of nominal ideology. But still, this is a pretty bad signal that while Brazilians have likely rejected Bolsonaro, they haven't rejected right-wing politics at all.

[Mike88]

Eeeesh. That is brutal.

Of course afaik Brazilian party allegiances are rather fluid and usually elected Presidents manage to cobble together a governing majority regardless of nominal ideology. But still, this is a pretty bad signal that while Brazilians have likely rejected Bolsonaro, they haven't rejected right-wing politics at all.

That seems a fair take. Indeed, in Globo news, a pundit labeled the results as a whole like this: "Lula is an island surrounded by an ocean of extreme right and conservatism."

[jaichind]

It is reasonable to expect MDB to work with whoever is the Prez but I am not sure PSD will work with Lula unless he compromises on policy.

I wonder how effective will Bolsonaro be at holding his bloc together in opposition.  What are the chances he will try to run in 2026?  That would be an effective way to maintain his bloc.

[CumbrianLefty]

Why has Brazil become so right wing overall? Is it really all down to evangelicals??

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It always was, really, even if the weirdly universal Lusophone tendency towards sinistrisme confuses things at first. The era of PT dominance was a remarkable exception.

[Leading Political Consultant Ma Anand Sheela]

One possible explanation I've seen for the polling miss is that census data in Brazil being very out of date means pollsters have a hard time weighting evangelicals properly. Is there anything to this?