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

[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.

[RicardoCampos]

I think you can make a correlation in RS and SC:

Colonization map
SC election map
RS election map

[buritobr]

Rocinha is one of the most left-wing parts of Rio and it's notorious favela. I'm under the impression that isn't particularly impoverished these days - frankly, seems like a great place to be a "bobo"? - but neither is it "middle class".

Rocinha is a very big favela, as you said, one of the most left-wing parts of Rio de Janeiro.
Since Rocinha is very big, there is a big diversity: some inhabitants are very poor, some inhabitants could be considered part of the "lower middle class" according to their income. Because Rocinha is located in the Sout Zone, Rocinha is the favela which receives a large number of foreign tourists.

[buritobr]

In the previous replies, we talked about the "militia" in Rio de Janeiro. I will explain in more details.

The militia are paramilitary group of acting and former policemen which started to control the favelas and other poor districts in the West Zone since the 2000s. They use violence in order to "protect" these communities from the activity of drug dealing gangs. But they also act like gangs: they earn money buy charging fees on the TV cable and Internet services, public transportation, cooking gas and the security of shops. Some of the militia also... protect drug dealers who are friendly to them.
During the 2000s, some important politicians considered that the militia were the lesser of the evils compared to the drug dealing gangs, including former mayor César Maia (2001-2009), who endorsed Lula in 2022.
This view started to change when the left-wing state representative Marcelo Freixo created an inquiry to investigate the militia, and his report receive large public attenction. Freixo needs to walk with security men besides him. His ally, former city councilor Marielle Franco was murdered in 2018 because she was a notorious enemy of the militia. The film Elite Squad (2010) was also important to change the mind of people who considered that the militia were the lesser of the evils.
The militia used violent methods in order to elect some allies as representatives at the State Assembly of Rio de Janeiro. Some inhabitants were forced to take picture of their votes using cell phones. The Electoral Court answered by forbidding cell phones in the voting precint.
The militia are close related to the right because the right-wing ideology is wide spread in all Brazilian police forces. Some members of the militia took part of extermination squads during the military dictatorship (1964-1985). It's very dangerous for left-wing politicians to make campaign in areas controled by the militia.
Many people in the West Zone have a positive view on the militia because they feel safer. There is also a widespread (and wrong) belief that the biggest drug dealing gang, Comando Vermelho, is related to the left.

[omar04]

https://twitter.com/Libnex2/status/1587802618113449986?

[CumbrianLefty]

Not really a surprise, sadly. Maybe the polls weren't actually "wrong" at all?

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

Absolutely insane watching Brazilian Bolsonarist's acting exactly like deranged, lunatic Trumper's after he lost in 2020. Their tears are sweet, but the ideology they prop up is all too real and all too dangerous.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Why did Tocantins barely swing to Lula? Heboybdid 0.4 better than Haddad in 2018. You'd think a narrow Haddad win would translate to a large Lula win instead of him also narrowly winning.

[Red Velvet]

Not really a surprise, sadly. Maybe the polls weren't actually "wrong" at all?

Yeah, I think this would’ve ended with Lula between 52% and 52,5% in runoff before all the economic populism and dirty games played in this October month.

And that’s because these tactics started at least two months before the first round as well! Imagine if Bolsonaro played fair since the start lol. You can see Lula maintained the same numbers during the whole time but Bolsonaro showed a slow but constant growth during this time. At one point he had 20%-25% in the polls, but ended with 43% in the 1st round after everything.

It was the combination of everything though, not just this buying of votes (which was totally effective if you compare this town in the interview results from 1st round and 2nd round) - there was also the artificial deflation he stimulated through elimination ICMS taxes on gas, there was the Auxílio Brasil anticipation and the giving of credit through it so that people could borrow even more instant money (even though the bill they will have to pay later will be much more expensive than what they borrowed), besides A LOT of other stuff. UOL website even made a list of 10 tactics by the government to capitalize on more votes that ended up failing, even if they made the race much closer.

Under this scenario, for him to still lose and become 1st ever incumbent to do so, feels kinda like a miracle and historical. Brazil has proved it’s not like, Hungary, where this type of stuff and cheap economic populism have given Orbán a big grasp at power, validated by the population.

Now that he won’t have the State machine behind him, it’s something less that he will have in his favor. I must say that this country was very very lucky though because I think under this aggressive scenario of State harassing people for votes, any other candidate different than Lula would likely have lost this to Bolsonaro. And a re-election would likely solidify Bolsonaro’s grasp on power to a more permanent effect.

Now we need to put people like Carla Zambelli and most of the radical fanatics in the street blocking the roads in jail, right after this election. Give it a year, a year in a half (in order to dust settles down) and then start a fair process on Bolsonaro too, regardless if you decide to punish him or not. But it’s necessary for the safety of the democracy that he gets at least investigated.

[Red Velvet]

Why did Tocantins barely swing to Lula? Heboybdid 0.4 better than Haddad in 2018. You'd think a narrow Haddad win would translate to a large Lula win instead of him also narrowly winning.

The large swings to Lula happened in the South and Southeast. Which are more developed and kinda more “immune” to economic populism and it’s where Bolsonaro got more backlash for everything he did in the past years.

The North and Northeast are more of PT strongholds but they’re also more bound to be affected by economic populism. It’s a poorer region that has become loyal to PT after their years in government but one that’s not as immune to these type of tricks Bolsonaro pulled off.

If anything, the fact that Lula slightly grew or only diminished a small bit in comparison to Haddad 2018, shows these tactics from Bolsonaro to break PT hegemony in the Northeast had only a minimal effect and didn’t succeed as he probably hoped.

PT had a larger % in all regions in comparison to 2018, with the exception of Northeast - but even there they decreased only 0,4% and kept their huge margins. Bolsonaro worked hard to break this grasp PT has on Northeast with the last months harsh economic populism but failed because the people have more memory than the politicians give them credit for, so they didn’t forget the government basically abandoned them for its first 3 three years, only courting them in the election one.

[RicardoCampos]

Militia is certainly a better explanation than educational level for explaining electoral demography in Rio de Janeiro.

The left simply abandoned the poorest areas and that gap would be filled: militias and evangelical churches.

[RicardoCampos]

Not really a surprise, sadly. Maybe the polls weren't actually "wrong" at all?

This type of vote-buying is a very isolated thing. This is the same as saying that American violence numbers are underestimated because of videos of school shootings. It is also very inefficient, most employees receive money and simply vote for whoever they want.

The most common is the psychological pressure: "if Lula wins, I'll have to fire, close the company". That does have an effect. But the left also does this in its domains, as in colleges and schools, it has teachers who instigate students to sing "Bolsonaro out". I think that if a person feels pressured to vote for another candidate, they would rightly say that they would vote for him in an election poll. It can't be an excuse for poll institutes.

There are several other reasons that explain Bolsonaro's increase, as Red Velvet indicated.

At least Datafolha, which was considered the best polling institute, managed to get the result of the 2nd round right. Your projection 1 day before was 52/48%, with a margin of error of 2º, therefore 1% away from the result. Ipec (ex-Ibope), well this one can close its doors anyway, changing its name again is already too much.

[RicardoCampos]

I wonder if the case of Tocantins was influenced by agribusiness

[2952-0-0]

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.

[Red Velvet]

All the 27 state Capitals vote from the biggest % for Lula to the least:

1. Salvador (Bahia) - 70,73%
2. Teresina (Piauí) - 66,44%
3. São Luís (Maranhão) - 60,38%
4. Fortaleza (Ceará) - 58,18%
5. Aracajú (Sergipe) - 57,26%
6. Recife (Pernambuco) - 56,32%
7. São Paulo (São Paulo) - 53,54%
8. Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul) - 53,50%
9. Natal (Rio Grande do Norte) - 52,96%
10. Belém (Pará) - 52,28%
11. João Pessoa (Paraíba) - 50,10%
12. Rio de Janeiro (Rio de Janeiro) - 47,34%
13. Florianópolis (Santa Catarina) - 46,67%
14. Belo Horizonte (Minas Gerais) - 45,75%
15. Vitória (Espírito Santo) - 45,30%
16. Macapá (Amapá) - 45,08%
17. Maceió (Alagoas) - 42,82%
18. Brasília (Distrito Federal) - 41,19%
19. Palmas (Tocantins) - 39,68%
20. Manaus (Amazonas) - 38,72%
21. Cuiabá (Mato Grosso) - 38,50%
22. Campo Grande (Mato Grosso do Sul) - 37,35%
23. Goiânia (Goiás) - 36,05%
24. Porto Velho (Rondônia) - 35,37%
25. Curitiba (Paraná) - 35,22%
26. Rio Branco (Acre) - 27,49%
27. Boa Vista (Roraima) - 20,53%


I am GAGGED with Curitiba being the 3rd most Bolsonarist capital ABOVE the capital of the state of deforestation that is Rondônia.

Rio Branco and Boa Vista are such WHO? cities in states where practically no one really lives, so I guess we can make Curitiba the #1 city for these people by default.

Hilarious too how São Paulo suddenly became one of the most leftist cities of the country in this election thanks to Bolsonaro. Wtf

Funny and impressive how even in this list - of cities, not states - the city from Minas Gerais managed to be exactly in the middle-center position of the list.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Would be curious to see a map of which state capitals vote to the left or right of their respective states. My impression from browsing the maps is that state capitals tend to vote to the right of their state in the North, but to the left in the South and Southeast. Not sure about Nordeste.

[Red Velvet]

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.

The urban = left rule doesn’t apply to Brazil or Latin America at all.

Only few urban cities are somewhat pushed to the left because of this “progressive center” idea. See how São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre and Florianópolis voted significantly to the LEFT in comparison to how their states overall voted.

[mileslunn]

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.

[Red Velvet]

Would be curious to see a map of which state capitals vote to the left or right of their respective states. My impression from browsing the maps is that state capitals tend to vote to the right of their state in the North, but to the left in the South and Southeast. Not sure about Nordeste.

Exclude Rondônia and Mato Grosso which I think are states where it’s more the interior that it’s disproportionately pushed to the right because of the deforestation ring that passes through those states.

That leaves you only with the South + Southeast (excluding F-ing Curitiba and also Belo Horizonte) as states where the capital pushes the vote somewhat to the left, due to that urban progressive effect.

Belo Horizonte is not in that group because Minas Gerais as a state has some Northeast characteristics in its more northern interior - which pushes the state as a whole to the left. That’s why it makes sense for Minas Gerais to fall on the same color as the Northeast states for this particular map.

Curitiba truly is the only single outlier hard and impossible for me to explain lmao

[Antonio the Sixth]

Very informative, thanks!

I guess Southeastern Brazil is fast moving toward a "muh trends" kind of political alignment, but the Northern part of the country is still very much its own thing. Let's hope it stays that way.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Does anyone have exit polls about how different demographics voted? I can't find that on the Wikipedia article.

I’m interested too but I’m guessing it was a pretty universal shift left

[Red Velvet]

Very informative, thanks!

I guess Southeastern Brazil is fast moving toward a "muh trends" kind of political alignment, but the Northern part of the country is still very much its own thing. Let's hope it stays that way.

Not as much “moving”, the capitals in the South and the Southeast were always more progressive than their states interior.

São Paulo city for example, already had multiple PT mayors before, but never elected a governor in the state that wasn’t from PSDB in the last 24 years. That trend was broken now to someone from a more right-wing party than PSDB.

It’s just something that always was like this, as in those more developed regions I think the normal is for the interior to be in the right of the capital and bigger urban centers.

When the region is poorer the opposite happens though. Which is why there’s no place where the left is as strong as in the Northeast Interior.

[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.

[Sol]

Why is Curitiba so right-wing? Is it just a function of being well off and white? All I know about it is breathless coverage of its urban planning policies from the Utne Reader.

[Red Velvet]

One thing about Curitiba is that it’s the coldest capital in Brazil. Of all capitals of Brazil, it usually registers the lowest temperatures even if it’s to the North of Florianópolis and Porto Alegre - due to a higher altitude as those others tend to stay around sea level.

Altitude of the Southern capitals:

Curitiba (PR) - 934 meters
Florianópolis (SC) - 3 meters
Porto Alegre (RS) - 10 meters

And the coldest areas of RS and Sc (Serra Gaúcha & Catarinense) tend to also correlate with more right-wing vote.

Out of all 27 capitals, Curitiba is also the one with 2nd highest altitude, behind only Brasília (DF), which has an altitude of 1171 meters. But it’s not as cold as Curitiba because it’s more in the north of it, in the Center of the country.

Top 5 highest altitudes:

1. Brasilia (DF) - 1171m
2. Curitiba (PR) - 934m
3. Belo Horizonte (MG) - 852m
4. São Paulo (SP) - 760m
5. Goiânia (GO) - 749m

Curitiba because of this is the only city that doesn’t tend to have hot summers, with its climate being classified as Cfb - Wet Temperate Climate with Moderate Summers and no Dry Season

Cfa - Wet Temperate Climate with Hot Summers and no Dry Season

Cwa - Wet Temperate Climate with Dry Winters and Hot Summers

Top 5 coldest climates:
1. Curitiba (PR) - Cfb
2. Porto Alegre (RS) - Cfa
2. São Paulo (SP) - Cfa
2. Florianópolis (SC) - Cfa
5. Belo Horizonte (MG) - Aw/Cwa

These are the only 5 capitals where the climate is described as more temperate (C) instead of tropical - which naturally has higher temperatures and is what happens in all the other capitals, but with Belo Horizonte being more in-between a tropical and temperate climate.

https://pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_de_capitais_do_Brasil_por_clima

Traveling around the center of Curitiba: