Half plus one of the votes cast by any of the candidates: that is what Luiz Ignacio da Silva needs to win what would be his third presidential term. And, according to the latest polls published up to September 28, he is closer than ever. The average made by EL PAÍS gives it 47%. He has not only increased his advantage over his rival, Jair Bolsonaro, from 10 to 12 points. If the polls are correctly measuring the will for each of the candidates, the current president would be stuck at 35%, while the change of government in the first round would have become more likely. It would, in fact, be within a hypothetical margin of error of 3 points, usual in standard-quality electoral polls.
In the last week, Lula would have grown about 2.5 points, which is approximately equivalent to adding between 3 and 4 million voters to his ranks if we assume a turnout similar to or somewhat higher than that of previous years. This is well observed both in the average of EL PAÍS and in those that maintain Stadium, Veja or the Financial Times. Something that indicates a general increase in the last wave of surveys.
In light of the evolution of other candidates, the increase comes especially from the undecided, who have fallen in the last week to less than 6%. It could also come from the voters of other candidates, especially that of Ciro Gomes, who has dropped 1.2 points in the last 7 days. It should be remembered that Gomes has been trying for years to compete with Lula’s PT for the space of the moderate left and the center that is most reluctant to Bolsonaro, and that until recently it was growing in the polls. The inertia of polarization seems to produce a decline that also reaches the centrist Simone Tebet.
Furthermore, since there are no significant losses for Bolsonaro, it can be deduced that transfers between winning candidates are unlikely. Something to be expected if one looks at the form that the election has taken: as a decisive contest between two poles, not only ideological, but also institutional, especially since the outgoing head of state refuses to clarify whether he would accept an eventual defeat.
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
subscribe
In addition, there is still time for two mirror reactions of the previous ones to be activated: a shift of voters from third candidates, or a shift of undecided voters, towards Bolsonaro, given the increased probability of a victory in the first round. Because in highly polarized environments, polls do not make candidates out of nowhere, but they can cement or reduce margins that, sometimes, can end up being decisive; or the fragmentation of the anti-Lula opposition into candidacies that occupy the entire spectrum from socioliberalism to the populist right and have decided to go all the way even if it costs Bolsonaro millions of votes.
These are the scenarios that, if they continue until the polls close, would leave Lula close to or even above that coveted half plus one vote: assuming that the majority of voters who remain in dispute (undecided whose participation is plausible) they leave for Lula, he will stay on the brink of winning the first-class goal. In the same way, if they end up staying at home, the reduction of the denominator would also put them within a very few votes of the Palacio de Plantalto. According to these simulations, it would need an additional boost from abstentionists or leaks from centrist candidates to ensure that it reaches the desired goal.
Subscribe here to the newsletter THE COUNTRY America and receive all the informative keys of the current situation in the region.
#Lula #grows #polls #approaches #absolute #majority #elections #Brazil