Electoral surveys and other projections have frustrated the expectations of the president’s allies (PT) who were betting on a better performance after the , such as income tax exemption.
The president’s direct collaborators have said, in private conversations, that they imagined seeing the PT member with the highest popularity eight months before the election.
The assessment is that the economic measures have not yet been converted into electoral capital for the PT member, who will run for another term in October.
the senator (PL-RJ), has achieved it, as electoral polls from the beginning of this year show.
Furthermore, during Carnival, tracking — a less precise but faster-producing type of opinion poll, designed to detect trends in public debate — to which government officials had access showed a .
released last December, 11 days after Flávio announced his pre-candidacy, showed the senator with 36% of voting intentions in the second round, against 46% for Lula — a difference of 10 percentage points.
The most recent edition of the survey, , showed Lula with 43% of voting intentions for the second round against 38% for Flávio, a difference of five points.
The same survey showed that disapproval of the president is at 49%, while approval is at 45%.
In February, the first salaries began to be paid after , which zeroed out deductions for formal workers who receive up to R$5,000 per month and reduced those for those who earn up to R$7,350. The measure is Lula’s main bet to expand his electorate.
Some members of the government and PT members working for the president’s re-election believe that it is still too early to assess the impact of the exemption on public opinion.
One of the arguments would be the volume of expenses that the middle class has between the end of one year and the beginning of another, such as Christmas and New Year parties, in addition to . For this reason, the slack in the family budget will only be noticed in the coming months.
Allies of the President of the Republic point out that the pace of advertising by the federal government slowed down at the end of last year and that it should recover in the coming months. They also assess that in recent weeks the political debate has taken a backseat, with festivals such as Carnival taking center stage.
Another wing of the government admits, also with reservation, that, in a polarized scenario, social programs and actions to combat inequalities do not sensitize the Bolsonarista electorate, which is more receptive to the customs agenda. Therefore, the president’s opponents .
There is a consensus among allies of the President of the Republic that this year’s election will be fierce. They consider Lula the favorite, but without a comfortable lead.
Some of the PT’s assistants believe it is possible that the dispute will be resolved in the first round, but not because any of the candidates will have a devastating vote. The thesis is that the electorate will be polarized between Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro. In this scenario, with little chance of a third competitor obtaining a good result, it would be feasible for one of the two favorites to reach more than half of the votes in the first vote, with the second place candidate getting a similar percentage.
