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

[H. Ross Peron]

this is another Trump 2016
the polls got it wrong again, at least it will be 2% margin of victory, not 13% ridiculousnless

You two really should get a room in a love hotel.

[H. Ross Peron]

I'd like more feedback from the Brazilians here but my impression of Rio is that, historically, it was a "red" city and that this persisted until rather recently. The first danger sign could be seen when Dilma performed miserably in the 1st round in 2014 due to Marina Silva's strong performance, which was driven in large part by Pentecostals supporting here.

Are the poor in Rio unusually Pentecostal? In my view, that could explain Rio's extreme shifts in a parsimonious manner but, of course, it does not explain everything because Pentecostals in Bahia or Pernambuco still vote for PT candidates at reasonably high rates.

I've wondered about this as well. Is Rio far more of an Evangelical city than its rival Sao Paulo? I think greater support for the Right makes sense in Rio compared to the Northeast due to there being far more nouveau riche/lower middle class evangelicals and possibly the greater relative salience of issues such as crime vs. material economic conditions. Additionally, certain evangelical based self-help/prosperity theology/Norman Vincent Peale style "positive thinking" movements (see this excellent article in Unherd https://unherd.com/2022/09/the-self-help-guru-who-conquered-brazil/) are almost certainly much more popular in a place like Rio. Of course, localized demographic voting patterns/political subcultures emerge all the time, this isn't an exact comparison but just compare the voting patterns of Italian Americans in the New York City metropolitan area to Boston...

[H. Ross Peron]

I also wanted to ask what is the reason why the southernmost part of Rio Grande do Sul shifted to the left so strongly this time? essentially all those municipalities that are close or border Uruguay...

How are those areas different from the rest of the state? are they poorer?

That appears to be the case: https://twitter.com/Libnex2/status/1577053265443057664

We shouldn't forget Lula won Rio Grande de Sul in both 1989 and 1994, when he lost nationally in those elections. This election seems to feature a slight weakening of the fairly strong regional polarization of the past 20 or so years.

[H. Ross Peron]

Now, talking about the city of Rio de Janeiro-RJ
2022 was the 3rd time PT lost in the city. The other 2 were 1994 and 1998. It is the first time in the New Republic (1985-present) that the left wins a presidential election without winning Rio. Before 2022, the last time a candidate supported by a labor party was elected president without winning Rio was Juscelino Kubitschek in 1955.
In 2022, there was no clear income polarization in Rio de Janeiro. Bolsonaro won Barra da Tijuca, a wealthy neighborhood in the West Zone, but he also won the poor neighborhoods in the West Zone. Lula won all the wealthy South Zone (neighborhoods of Leblon, Ipanema, Copacabana, Botafogo, Flamengo, Laranjeiras) and also some favelas in the North Zone. Bolsonaro won some poor neighborhoods which are not favelas in the North Zone.
The "bourgueous elites" live in Barra da Tijuca. The "bohemian elites" live in the South Zone.
It's only the third time PT wins in the South Zone. The other 2 were 1989 and 2002. In 1998, 2006, 2010, 2014, PT won Rio de Janeiro without winning the South Zone.
Rio de Janeiro used to have a classic income polarization, but a realigment took place in the 2010s. It starts when the leftist Marcelo Freixo ran for mayor, lost the election but won the South Zone. At the beggining, it look like that those results were only a consequence of Freixo's popularity in the South Zone, but after that, all the elections in Rio de Janeiro started to have similar votting pattern: left doing better in the Zone South

Great Rio analysis. It’s exactly like that. The ones who vote for Lula here are different from the rest of the country.

The “cultured well-educated upper classes” from South Zone + Residents of Favelas are the ones who voted for Lula

Meanwhile the “uncultured dumb rich who want to live isolated from the world by living in Barra da Tijuca” + Residents of Militia areas or Poorer non-favela areas voted for Bolsonaro.

Excellent analysis. Have a few questions:

1. Is this the first time since at least the mid 20th Century Sao Paulo voted to the left of Rio?

2. What is the social characteristic of "militia" areas in Rio? Are they working class or more lower middle class? I guess the difference between the favelas and pro Bolsonaro lower income areas are that the former are totally destitute as opposed to just low income?

[H. Ross Peron]

The demographic differences between the USA and Brazil are fascinating, but perhaps not that surprising.

Japanese-Americans are staunchly Democratic, but they also fit very well into the new Democratic base as college-educated urban voters for the most part. It is a bit surprising that Brazil would have a group like Japanese-Brazilians vote so strongly to the Right, but maybe Japanese-Brazilians don't belong in the "educated Bohemian elite" in the same way as Japanese-Americans? Or maybe its simply a matter of Brazil having much stronger racial integration than America - the history of Japanese-Americans is grounded in internment, unions especially in places like Hawaii, and education-dependent professions like law and medicine.

It's worth noting Japanese Americans have been historically quite Democratic as well, especially compared to other Asian American groups such as Chinese Americans. In Hawaii this seems to have been driven by Democrats being associated with the peaceful Hawaiian Revolution of 1954 that broke the power of the traditional WASP planter class. I'm less sure about California and the Continental US more broadly. Its also worth noting Japanese Americans are very integrated compared to other Asian groups in the country.

Returning to the topic at hand, what is the religious composition of the Japanese Brazilian population? Are most of them Christian nowadays and is there a significant Evangelical minority among them?

Is there an ethnic difference between the Lula and Bolsonaro voting areas in the far south? Curious if the Germans and Italians vote well to the right of ethnic Portuguese.

[H. Ross Peron]

I think this has been answered in the past, but why is Brasília a stronghold of the right? Comparable cities like Ottawa, Washington, and Canberra are stronghold of left-of-centre establishment parties.

It is interesting.  Only place in Europe & North America I can think of still like this is Madrid, but it also financial centre too and largest city so civil servants probably have less impact.  Stockholm as recently as a decade ago voted to right of Sweden, but now usually votes to left of it.  Lisbon still votes slightly to right of Portugal although left won it in last two elections.  At subnational level, Quebec City is a good example as it tends to be more conservative than most of Quebec.  So Brasilia is not only but it seems in North American & Europe such cities are exceptions not norm while in Latin America seems more common.

In Latin America, Santiago has started consistently voting to the left of Chile as a whole and Petro overperformed in Bogota. On the other hand, Buenos Aires votes to the right of the country which is complicated by the fact that the city is a stronghold of anti-Peronism of both the right and the left, so non-Peronist left parties do pretty well there.

[H. Ross Peron]

I hate how you can't find decent Paint-editable base maps anymore for some reason, but here's the best I could do with what I have to work with:



This is trend, so controlling for national swing.

Worth noting that while Nordeste moved significantly to the right this time around, that comes after two cycles of a pretty intense leftward trend. Especially impressive that in some states Haddad did better than Dilma'14 or Dilma'14 did better than Dilma'10 (or both in Paraíba's case!). So the Nordeste still came in strong for Lula. It also seems like it tends to trend toward the incumbent when there is one running, so the move toward Bolsonaro makes some amount of sense in this regard.

This can't help but remind me of the 1974-1981 swings in the French overseas territories. There is a case for low income/socially marginalized areas/demographics to swing pro incumbent globally it seems...