Campaign wants Datena on the streets and fights Marçal – 09/29/2024 – Power

In an adverse situation in the race for Mayor of São Paulo, the campaign of presenter José Luiz Datena (PSDB) tries to convince him to extend his walks through the streets.

The challenge, however, is not the simplest: the journalist is unpredictable when faced with suggestions.

In the brief moments with fans and onlookers so far, the television presenter has been reacting with solicitude to requests from the public, ranging from selfies to recording videos to promote the neighborhood’s businesses.

The warm reaction has been an escape valve for the toucan, far from the leaders in the latest Datafolha survey.

With his fame built on television, Datena is numerically the best-known candidate among all, with 97% of those interviewed responding that they know who he is.

Next come Mayor Ricardo Nunes (93%), deputy Guilherme Boulos (87%), self-proclaimed former coach Pablo Marçal (82%) and deputy Tabata Amaral (74%).

On the other hand, the presenter accounts for only 6% of voting intentions and suffers a rejection of 36%, according to Datafolha.

“The surveys don’t reach some parts of the city. When I go to the outskirts, I can’t take a step”, says Datena.

“People come to hug me, kiss me and say they are watching me, demonstrating something that does not appear on the paper in the polls. Let’s see the voice of the people at the polls”, he continues.

Since the beginning of the electoral race, Datena has expressed her discomfort with the series of campaign commitments and has already mocked demands for her aversion to walking.

“I’m not obligated to walk all day. The day I don’t walk, people start demanding me. I’m not Moses to walk all day,” stated Datena on the 6th.

In 44 days of campaigning (between August 16th and September 28th), the toucan made at least 23 visits to neighborhoods such as Capão Redondo, Lapa, Pinheiros, Ipiranga, Piraporinha, São Mateus and Vila Nova Cachoeirinha, among others.

On some of these walks, Datena took advantage of already scheduled commitments, such as an interview for a radio program in Vila Mariana. Upon leaving the studio, he walked a few meters while allowing himself to be filmed and greeted journalists on the court next to the station. The visit to the neighborhood took no more than ten minutes.

On the day he went to the building of the Association of Police Delegates of the State of São Paulo, on Avenida Ipiranga, Datena only walked half a block so that journalists could record images of the event.

In addition to intensifying incursions into the city, the campaign plans to evoke, especially on social media, the image of a combative candidate concerned about the advancement of Marçal, the most rejected candidate according to the polls.

Datena repeatedly associates the PRTB candidate with a threat to democracy and virtual crime. Marçal was convicted after working in a bank fraud ring.

In this narrative, the campaign has already made use of the episode in which the presenter threw a chair at Marçal in the electoral propaganda. And now he is trying to scale it with the punch of Nahuel Medina, Marçal’s advisor, in Duda Lima, Nunes’ marketer.

In the debate on Saturday (28) on Record, however, there was a double act between the self-styled ex-coach and Datena to attack Nunes. Marçal chose the presenter to ask who was the worst mayor in the city and heard in response that the list was long.

With little space during electoral hours, Datena’s campaign injected R$500,000, of the R$3.7 million in resources received, with boosts on social media, according to values ​​released by the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) until Thursday (26 ).

The amount is slightly higher than that of Marçal himself (R$442 thousand), but is well below that of leaders Nunes (R$4.5 million) and Boulos (R$2.4 million).

“Our electoral fund is R$8 million, and there are people who are spending R$70 million, R$40 million to campaign. Even from this perspective, our campaign has attracted attention”, says Datena.

Finally, the hope among her advisors is that Datena will be able to stand out in the TV Globo debate, the last one before the election on Sunday (6).

A communicator for almost 30 years, Datena failed in his debut in the Band debate and got confused with the rules, to the point of apologizing to the PSDB national executive and classifying his performance “as an own goal”.

The team, however, assesses that, since the TV Cultura debate, Datena has managed to convey her proposals and ideas more clearly.

On Globo, the candidate must use his space to reinforce the discourse on combating violence and detail his proposals for the capital’s poorest public. Among the promises are the guarantee of zero fares on buses for those registered with Bolsa Família and the two-hour extension of opening hours at daycare centers and UBS (Basic Health Units).