Survey shows that 16% of Lula voters are unhappy

A survey carried out by PoderData between December 16th and 18th reveals that 16% of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s (PT) voters are unhappy with the PT administration in its first year in office.

The percentage of dissatisfied voters is equivalent to approximately 9.6 million voters, almost five times more than the 2.14 million votes that decided the election in favor of Lula. In the second round of the 2022 elections, Lula received 60,345,999 votes against 58,206,354 for Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

To arrive at the number of dissatisfied voters, the survey cross-referenced respondents’ answers, throughout the year, to the questions: “Do you approve or disapprove of President Lula’s government?” and “Who did you vote for president in the 2nd round of the 2022 elections?”

The survey also compared the respondents’ declaration of vote in 2022 with the evaluation of the president’s personal work. In this intersection, the result is numerically more favorable to the president, but technically tied, within the limit of the survey’s margin of error, with the management’s assessment.

PoderData also found that, among those who voted for Jair Bolsonaro, 15% declare that they “approve” of the Lula government and another 11% evaluate the current president’s performance as “good” or “excellent”. The survey indicates, considering the percentages, that around 8.7 million of Bolsonaro’s voters are satisfied with Lula’s administration.

The numbers demonstrate that, in addition to failing to combat polarization, the Lula government managed to alienate supporters. In a previous survey, released at the beginning of the week, PoderData numbers already indicated a drop of 6 percentage points in the PT member’s approval, from 52% to 46%.

Disapproval is also greater among those who did not vote in the 2nd round

Among voters who did not vote in the second round, less than half, 44%, say they “approve” of the Lula government. The percentage is 6 points lower than that recorded in January, 50%. In the same group, 39% declare themselves dissatisfied, 5 percentage points more than at the beginning of the mandate. In relation to Lula’s personal performance, 31% declare it to be “good” or “excellent”; 31% say it is “bad” or “terrible”; and 33% rate it as “regular”.

The research was carried out through 2,500 telephone interviews in 244 municipalities in the 27 units of the Federation. The margin of error is 2 percentage points. The confidence interval is 95%.