Tie in runoff scenario
A new survey by the Indexa institute, commissioned by Broadcast — a content service of the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo — points to a tie between President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) in a simulation of a direct runoff in the presidential election.
The data were released this Tuesday, the 15th.
Gap narrows compared with August
The main movement captured by the study is the narrowing of the difference between the two names. Compared with the previous survey by the same institute, conducted in August, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro managed to reduce the margin separating the two pre-candidates in a possible decisive matchup.
The reading of this movement is that the Bolsonaro camp gained ground between the two measurements, at least in the runoff scenario.
What the survey measures
Surveys of this type usually present two distinct blocks of information:
- First-round scenarios, with the full list of names tested by the institute;
- Runoff simulations, in which only two candidates are placed head-to-head to measure vote transfer and each one's growth potential.
It is in this second block that the tie between Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro appears most strongly. The runoff simulation works as a thermometer of the electorate's degree of polarization and tends to guide the campaign strategies of the main political forces.
Political reading
The result reinforces a picture of a tight race in the most competitive segment of the electorate. For the government camp, the data serve as a warning about the need to consolidate the advantage gained over the term. For the opposition, the number is received as a sign that the migration of votes toward the senator's name has been occurring consistently.
It is worth remembering that electoral surveys are snapshots of a specific moment. They record the voting intention declared by the respondent at that instant and cannot anticipate the result of the election, which is only defined at the ballot box.
Methodology and commissioning
The survey was produced by Indexa at the request of Broadcast, a real-time news project maintained by the group responsible for Estadão. The survey was made public this Tuesday, the 15th, and circulated among political analysts and on social media throughout the day.
The release of surveys in Brazil follows rules established by the Electoral Justice system, which requires prior registration of the surveys and the publication of information such as the collection period, sample size, margin of error and confidence level of the study.
Next steps
With the tie recorded in the runoff simulation, the tendency is for both camps to intensify their attention on the next surveys. The historical series from a single polling firm tends to be more relevant than a single isolated number, since it allows tracking the direction of the electorate's movement over time.
The scenario described by Indexa should be compared with data from other institutes in the coming weeks, which will help confirm — or relativize — the trend of convergence between Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro in a possible runoff.