The city has seen its prominence among low-income voters decrease since 2012. In the same period, voting for councilors from , , and PL among this portion of the population increased.
A Sheet analyzed the votes that candidates and parties received for the City Council since 2012 in all voting locations published by the (Superior Electoral Court).
Then, the income data of the city’s 18,953 census tracts made available in the 2010 Census was cross-referenced, according to the distance from the voting locations.
From the intersection, the areas were divided into three income groups with the same number of census tracts. According to IBGE, the average income for the city of São Paulo was R$3,289, in corrected values.
Sectors with an average monthly income of up to R$1,407 per person were considered low-income, in values also adjusted for inflation.
While in 2012 the PT held, on average, 29.1% of the valid votes for councilors in these areas, in October this year the party reached 18.3%, a drop of almost 11 percentage points.
The most pronounced reduction in the PT’s average vote occurred from 2012 to 2016, when there was a seven percentage point reduction in the vote estimate, reaching 21.9%. From 2016 to 2020, the party lost another four points, reaching 17.5%. In this year’s elections, there was an increase of almost one percentage point, interrupting the party’s downward trajectory.
If in 2012 the PT managed to elect the then former Minister of Education as mayor of São Paulo, with the then former president as electoral leader, in the following years the party would enter a period of crisis.
In June 2013, protests against the political class encouraged the creation of right-wing groups that years later would engage in anti-government acts in 2016.
Political scientist and professor at FGV Easp Cláudio Couto highlights that in 2016 the electorate’s choice profile changed and this affected the PT throughout the country. In São Paulo, Haddad lost the race for re-election in the first round to João Doria.
“The wear and tear on the party is very clear there. The PT has not yet managed to recover from the blow of 2016. When you think about the left as a whole, it has gotten worse since then,” he says.
The decrease in votes received by PT candidates for the City Council occurred in 92.6% of the census tracts in the city of São Paulo, but was more pronounced in the 6,121 with lower incomes: in 97.4% of them the party’s vote fell.
In the district of Lajeado, in the east zone, where 87% of the sectors are among the poorest, the average number of votes per sector for the PT fell by half, from 37% in 2012 to 18% in 2024.
Despite the scenario, the 18.3% average keeps the party as the one with the largest share of votes in the lower-income group in these elections, pulling representation from the left. The same is repeated in the portion with average income (average income between R$1,407 and R$2,726), where the PT has 12.8% of the votes.
Only in the portion with higher incomes (average above R$ 2,726), the PT, with 9.6%, does not lead, falling behind the PSOL, with 13.7%, the PL, with 11.2%, and the União Brasil, with 10%.
The party grew in all groups, especially in high-income groups (11 percentage points since 2012). In the poorest sectors, the party’s average number of valid votes went from 2.2% to 8.2%, an increase of six percentage points in the period, which for Couto (FGV) may indicate a migration of votes from PT voters.
The political scientist adds that the speech that brought the PT closer to low-income voters does not have the same effect because of changes in the job market, with the growth of informality, and the advance of conservatism, with the increase in evangelical churches in neighborhoods. poorer.
As an example of this disconnection, he cites the speech of the Minister of Labor and Employment, , that, the subject of a PEC (Proposed Amendment to the Constitution) presented by federal deputy Erika Hilton (PSOL-SP), , in a context in which unions do not have the same weight.
In terms of ideology, based on the classification made based on behaviors referring to 2024, the low-income electorate in the city is divided. There is a slight advantage on the right, with 33.7%, compared to 32.7% for the left and 33.6% for the center. Since 2012, the left has fallen by 12 percentage points, the center has grown by 13 points and the right has decreased by just under one percentage point.
In the center, the biggest advance was made by the MDB. Anhanguera, which has more than half of the sectors among the poorest in the city (65%), was the district with the most significant votes for the party (40%) in these elections, driven by Fabio Riva’s vote.
On the right, União Brasil also grew, while it lost its electorate, which went from 11% to less than 1%.
The most populous district where União Brasil had the most significant vote in 2024 was Parelheiros, the fifth district with the most sectors among the poorest (83%). The party had 26% of the votes there.
For Couto, this growth is linked to the political group that was in power in the city, with the MDB in the city hall with and União Brasil in the City Council, with Milton Leite.
“Milton Leite is an influential figure within the government and União Brasil managed to bring resources to its electoral base more than parties that are not as aligned with the government,” he stated.
Couto states that although the vote for councilors is more pragmatic, considering whether the politician or party brought benefits to the district, the rejection of an ideology also has weight.
“There is a combination of these two things. We can consider ideology in the most negative sense: ‘I have become more conservative and I refuse to vote for the left’. The rejection of the PT, which has grown since 2016, is a factor that also can weigh.”
