Datafolha: 29% say they are PT, and 25% are Bolsonarists – 06/17/2023 – Politics

Almost six months after the inauguration of President Lula (PT), elected in the tightest race in the history of Brazilian redemocratization against Jair Bolsonaro (PL), polarization continues to hold the cards in the country. 29% of voters say they are convinced PT supporters, while 25% consider themselves very Bolsonarists.

The data, measured by Datafolha in its most recent national survey, show a picture of stability in relation to the two previous rounds in which the question was asked.

In December, 32% said they were PT, a figure that rose to 30% in March. Bolsonaristas were 25% at the end of 2022 and 22% three months ago.

In this survey, 2,010 people aged 16 or over were heard by the institute, from June 12th to 14th. The margin of error is plus or minus two percentage points, which demonstrates the stable scenario of national division.

As at other times, Datafolha measured the spectrum of polarization, starting from 1 (totally Bolsonarist) to 5 (totally PT), with 2 as a classification of more Bolsonarista than PT, 4, the opposite, and 3, a point of neutrality .

The numbers were also stable. Now in June, 7% said they were Bolsonarists more than PT supporters and 10%, the opposite. Already 20% placed themselves in the center of the scale, while 8% said they did not prefer any of the designations. Therefore, overall, there is a country with 38% of PT and philoptistas (the sum of the two groups does not total 39%, as the isolated data would indicate, due to rounding), compared to a contingent of 32% of Bolsonaristas and supporters .

The most PT supporters, so to speak, follow the usual fracture lines that accompany the preference for the PT since the party antagonized with the PSDB the leading role in national politics.

Thus, the Northeasterners (41%), the less educated (40%) and the poorest (38%) are more PT. Here, the electoral advantage for Lula stems from the fact that these are voluminous strata in the population sample of the survey, 26%, 32% and 48% of the ears, respectively.

Following the polarization manual, which in turn brought with variations to the right the traditionally anti-PT electorate associated until 2014 with the toucanate, older Bolsonarists (33%, 20% of the ears), Evangelicals (34%, 29% of respondents) and southerners (36%, 15% of the sample).

The stability registered since December in these data shows a certain imperviousness of the electorate to more or less acute facts. This year has already seen a serious crisis associated with the Bolsonarist coup, in the acts of January 8 in Brasilia, and a chronic weariness of Lula due to his poor political articulation.

Neither one fact nor the other changed opinions appreciably. It remains to be seen how Bolsonarism will behave with the eventual suspension of the political rights of the former president, who has a trial scheduled for the next 22nd at the Superior Electoral Court and a high chance of being unable to contest elections for eight years.

In this case, if the logic that marked the migration of the toucan electorate to a more radical right-wing sphere is valid, even if in tow, some center-right name in the market could try to take over Bolsonaro’s vacancy.

Today, the main candidate to do this is the governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), who was the former president’s minister, but who seeks a trajectory of a more rational right-wing and far from the coup-mongering raptures of the former chief, despite make nods to the old base.