Those who don’t have Tarcísio hunt with Flávio. This is the formula adopted by evangelical leaders who usually whistle in the electoral game, on the front line or behind the scenes.
The pre-candidacy of Senator (-RJ) for the Presidency is still viewed with caution among many pastors who supported his father, (PL), with much more enthusiasm in the past.
However, the favorite name of this group, the governor (Republicanos-SP), is an outside card in the presidential deck. To run for a position other than the current one, heads of the Executive must resign six months before the election. The deadline was April 4th, and Tarcísio didn’t do it. Trying for re-election is the only option he has left.
If there is a consensus that Flávio exceeded expectations in the polls, there is also fear that this performance will not be sustained throughout the campaign. The assessment that they could gain traction and erode their political capital weighs heavily. Added to this is the perception that he lacks his father’s mobilizing charisma, which makes it difficult to automatically transfer support.
The most recent survey shows that, depending only on the electorate, Flávio comfortably leads voting intentions. Let’s consider the two large religious demographic groups, which account for 78% of the 2,004 voters polled in 137 cities last week.
In the spontaneous survey, with no candidates presented beforehand, Lula has 29% of Catholics’ preference, and Flávio, 13%. Among evangelicals, the scenario is reversed: the senator appears with 24%, and Lula, with 15%.
When the interviewee is faced with a table of names that have already placed themselves as presidential candidates, the PT member maintains the advantage among Catholics — 43% against 30% for Flávio. Among believers, Jair’s son leads with 49%, and his rival reaches 25%.
The trend of religious polarization continues in the projections for a second round. The faithful subordinate to the Vatican prefer Lula (51%) to Flávio (41%). In the other Christian niche, the balance is 61% against 30% in favor of the senator.
The margin of error is plus or minus three points among Catholics, who make up 49% of those interviewed, and four points among evangelicals, 29% of the sample. The survey is registered with the Superior Electoral Court with code BR-03770/2026.
It’s true that Flávio’s candidacy is turning out better than the order. In December, the pastor who warned Bolsonaro Filho about a possible electoral disappointment: “You don’t have the muscle.”
Like so many other national leaders, he sympathized with a ticket headed by Tarcísio, with former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro as vice president. The disc flipped. Even Malafaia has already conformed and Flávio in a service on May 3rd.
Representative Sóstenes Cavalcante, leader of the PL in the Chamber and former president of the evangelical bench, has helped the senator in joining evangelical churches. Licensed pastor of the Assembly of God Vitória em Cristo, the church in Malafaia, he minimizes internal movements in the Assembly, a denomination that includes several currents that often diverge from each other politically.
He refers specifically to the support given by Bishop Samuel Ferreira, from the powerful Madureira Ministry of the Assembly of God, to Ronaldo Caiado (PSD-GO), another pre-candidate who runs on the right-wing streak.
It turns out that this assembly branch is known for navigating between different political seas.
Also a former leader of the evangelical group, Cezinha de Madureira once rode on the back of then-president Bolsonaro during a motorbike. When Lula won the 2022 election, he began to have good dialogue with members of the government.
Bishop Manoel Ferreira, a nonagenarian leader, when most leaders were closed with Bolsonaro five years ago, including those from the Madureira Ministry. Fame is to keep one foot in each electoral canoe, to be close to the one that wins.
Today this part of the Assembly of God is like this: Bishop Samuel, Manoel’s son, says he supports Caiado, but both federal deputy Cezinha de Madureira and state deputy Oseias de Madureira, who contest elections carrying the name of the church, recently migrated from the PSD to the PL.
Bishop Robson Rodovalho, from the Sara Nossa Terra church, bets his chips on the union of pastors around Flávio, the leading option in the polls. “No army prevails divided. One way or another, we will have to tune in”, says he, who gave religious support to Bolsonaro in prison.
The problem would be having unenthusiastic support, contrary to what was given to the father. This could demobilize the faithful base.
Even Jair, in the words of a leader who was by his side in 2018 and 2022, “gave a piece of cake” to elections dear to these leaders.
Examples: André Mendonça was not the “terribly evangelical” favorite to appear in the STF (Supreme Federal Court). Nor did any nominations for the Ministry of Education thrive during the Bolsonaro administration. Evangelicals so far have also not run for the Senate for (the name of deputy Marco Feliciano, from PL-SP, always circulates) nor for Bolsonaro Sr.’s vice president. Who knows about the son.
Officially, no one admits to making any demands on the Bolsonaro clan. But behind the scenes, many assume them.
Feliciano, in fact, was at the service in which pastor José Wellington Bezerra das Costa, from the influential Assembly of God Ministério Belém, prayed for Flávio. There, as reproduced in the report, he demanded that the senator and his political group fulfill promises made before the evangelical bench. “I also reminded them that, in the 2022 election, when Bolsonaro’s campaign coordinators took at least 90% of evangelicals for granted, they discovered that around 30% did not vote for him.”
If they had managed to turn around 10% of the believers who snubbed Bolsonaro, “we would have achieved victory”, says Feliciano, who declares himself loyal to the former president, “even if they don’t fulfill what they promised me”. He tries again to run for the Senate with the PL’s endorsement.
In the opinion of pastors, Jair Bolsonaro is not perfect, but he has more “license to make mistakes”. Flávio is still seen more as an agent of his father than as an autonomous leader, a weakness that, in a national dispute, can limit his reach and consolidate resistance. Those who don’t have Jair, however, hunt with Flávio.
