Datafolha: Bolsonaro Received Tactical Votes at the Last Minute
Maneuver in the final hours of the campaign has helped to explain the difference between the president's results in the last Datafolha (36%) and in the polls (43.2%), says the institute's director
Oct.4.2022 1:30PM
The results of the first round of the presidential elections show that the main research institutes in Brazil correctly indicated important trends, which were confirmed throughout the dispute. At the same time, some last-minute maneuvers were not captured by the institutes, since the most recent surveys by Datafolha and Ipec were carried out on Friday (30th) and Saturday (1st) — and the election, as is known, took place on Sunday (2).
Datafolha and Ipec appointed Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) in the lead and Jair Bolsonaro (PL) in second place. Both are far ahead of the second group, formed by Simone Tebet (MDB) and Ciro Gomes (PDT). The institutes also indicated an important probability of having a second round in the presidential race, which has, in fact, occurred. According to Datafolha, Lula had 50%; according to Ipec, it reached 51%. The margin of error was plus or minus two percentage points. The former president went to the second round with 48.4%.
The distance is greater, however, when considering the votes for Bolsonaro. In Datafolha, the current president registered 36%; at Ipec, 37%, with the same margin. At the polls, he won 43.2%. "Survey is not a prognosis. Each survey is a snapshot of a certain moment. The final result is only at the polls", says Luciana Chong, director of Datafolha, who refutes the argument that some kind of methodological error has occurred. "Election polls measure people's voting intention at the time they are surveyed. When carried out continuously throughout the electoral process, they are capable of pointing out trends, but they are not forecasters capable of predicting the exact number of votes that each candidate will have", declared IPEC's management in a note. According to Chong, it is quite likely that in those final hours, tactical votes for Bolsonaro came from voters who had previously declared a preference for Simone Tebet and, mainly, for Ciro Gomes.
The fear that Lula would be elected in the 1st round may, according to her, have contributed to this behavior. "Throughout the entire campaign, Ciro helped to fuel the anti-PT sentiment. At the time of voting, part of the voters impacted by this perspective gave up on him and chose Bolsonaro", says Chong.
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