The minister is, by far, the best-known member of the (Federal Supreme Court), according to research.
Those who have the best evaluation index, in turn, according to the institute’s calculation, are the ministers, and, subsequently, . While those who score worst in this regard are and , followed by Moraes himself.
2,004 people were interviewed by the institute from April 7th to 9th, in 137 municipalities across Brazil. The margin of error for the total sample is plus or minus two percentage points. The research was registered with the TSE under number BR-03770/2026.
Rapporteur of several inquiries targeting Bolsonarism, a preferred target of the former president (PL) and now also the owner of one of the court’s main glass ceilings in the case of , Moraes, who has been in court since 2017, is known by 89% of the population, according to the survey.
Cármen Lúcia comes next. At the STF for almost twice as long as Moraes, since 2006, the minister is known by 68% of those interviewed. She is followed by the dean, minister Gilmar Mendes, who took office in 2002 and is known by 62%.
Six of the 10 ministers are known, at least just by hearing about them, to the majority of the population.
As these questions were asked for the first time by the institute, there is no previous comparative data.
Among the least known are also, in general, those with less time in the Supreme Court.
Those appointed by former president Bolsonaro, , in the STF since the end of 2020, and André Mendonça, since the end of 2021, are known by 30% and 42% of the population, respectively. While , second to last appointed by (PT) to take office, in 2023, scores 37%.
All of these are the percentages measured in the stimulated responses, in which the names of the court members were mentioned one by one. In the spontaneous question, in which respondents were asked to say which names of ministers came to mind, 49% remembered the name of at least one member of the court.
In the spontaneous question, similar to what was measured in the stimulated question, Moraes was the most remembered. In aggregate, he was mentioned by 39% of respondents, followed by Cármen, with 10%, and , with 8%.
Those who said they knew a particular minister were also asked how they evaluated his performance. As the samples for each question were different, depending on the level of knowledge of each judge, the margins of error also vary.
Using an account that considers the rate of positive mentions minus the rate of negative mentions, Datafolha calculated an evaluation index for judges.
André Mendonça, despite not being as well known, has the best rating, with 26. For 39% of those who know him, he is great or good, while only 13% classify him as bad or terrible.
Selected in February to take over, after weeks of exhaustion that culminated in Dias Toffoli leaving the case, Mendonça was the one who ordered the former banker to be arrested again.
His predecessor in the post, Toffoli, is rated as excellent or good by just 19% and as bad or terrible by 35%, having the worst rating, at -16.
Despite having been one of the main reasons for criticism against the court recently, due to suspicions about his connections with the Master and which cast doubt on his partiality to be at the forefront of the process, Toffoli is known by just over half of the population, 54% — a level much lower than that of Moraes.
Also under pressure in the Master case, especially after the revelation that his wife’s office had a million-dollar contract with a bank and his messages with Vorcaro, which the minister denies, Moraes still maintains a better level of evaluation than Toffoli’s: with 33% excellent or good and 41% bad or terrible, he has an index of -8.
At the STF since 2017, Moraes gained great public prominence with his leading role in measures in defense of the court and its members and in investigations targeting Bolsonarism.
Among those interviewed who declare their intention to vote for Lula in this year’s elections, Moraes’ percentage of excellent or good goes to 66%, while that of bad or terrible drops to 7%.
An inverted scenario occurs among those who say they will vote for Flávio Bolsonaro (PL): in this group, Moraes’ positive rating is 7%, while the negative rating reaches 74%. Among those who say they will vote blank, null or for no candidate, the rate for bad or terrible is 37%, compared to 21% for good or excellent.
Among those who declare their vote for Flávio, the best rated ministers are Mendonça, with 50% excellent or good, followed by Luiz Fux, who reaches 32%, and who was the only one to vote in favor of his father in the trial of the coup plot in the First Panel of the STF. Kassio Nunes Marques, in turn, has an 18% positive rating in this group.
The only woman on the court and at the end of her term as president of the TSE (Superior Electoral Court), Cármen Lúcia has the second best overall approval rating, with a 42% positive rating, and 25% bad or terrible, forming an index of 17. Among those who vote for Flávio, her positive rating drops to 13%, while it is 72% among those who prefer Lula.
