An investigation by the newspaper Estadão, published on Sunday (September 6), identified at least 40 accounts of influencers who rarely, if ever, discuss politics posting videos in support of Augusto Cury, the self-help author running for president for the small Avante party. The report, by Bianca Gomes and Guilherme Caetano, also found that the campaign is receiving help from two professionals tied to Pablo Marçal, the digital coach and influencer who filed his own presidential bid for the PRTB.
According to the newspaper, the accounts posted videos asking for votes or praising the candidate between August 26 and 29. They cover finance, healthy living, entrepreneurship, humor, beauty, cars, religion and motherhood, and some have only a few thousand followers. Many use the same hashtag with Cury's name and the same image showing his picture and his ballot number, 70.
Some profiles admit they had never discussed politics before. "I'm going to vote for him, every video I put up is about this guy, I don't even want to know what he does," says a humor account with 14,300 followers. "I won't reveal that my vote is 70," says a general-interest profile followed by 119,000 people. A beauty and fitness influencer with 661,000 followers said: "In all these years I never talked about politics, I never took a political stand. But this man gave me hope."
Surge on Instagram, jump in the polls
The wave began on August 26, according to Estadão, when Cury's Instagram followers rose from 8.4 million to 10.7 million in two days. Gazeta do Povo, citing the monitoring platform Sólon, reported that the mobilization gained strength on August 25, when the author had 8.4 million followers.
Polls registered the surge days later. In the Nexus/BTG survey released on August 31, Cury jumped from 2% to 11% and moved into third place. In Atlas/Bloomberg polling, he rose from 1.6% to 7.8%. A Quaest poll on September 2 put him at 10%, alone in front of the other candidates outside the two main camps of Lula's PT and Flávio Bolsonaro's PL.
Ties to Marçal
Estadão reports that the campaign counts on Filippe Neto, Marçal's business partner, and Nahuel Gómez Medina, the coach's aide. Medina attacked Duda Lima, at the time the campaign marketer for politician Ricardo Nunes (MDB), during an electoral debate in 2024. Lima now works for Flávio Bolsonaro's presidential campaign.
Cury and Marçal shared a stage in early July at O Código da Voz, an event on neuroscience and influence whose most expensive ticket cost 5,497 reais, according to its website. Neto, who says Marçal is his wedding godfather, was among the speakers. On his Instagram, Neto says he created the slogan "O Brasil tem Cura. O Brasil tem Cury" (Brazil has a cure, Brazil has Cury), adopted by the Avante campaign. Marçal filed his own presidential candidacy with the PRTB on August 15, even though he is legally barred from holding office, according to Poder360.
Cury's running mate, former congressman Júlio Delgado of the PRTB, told the newspaper Valor Econômico, in an interview reported by Poder360 on Wednesday (September 2), that the support from people tied to Marçal was "organic and spontaneous".
"There is talk that Marçal has a personal relationship with Dr. Augusto Cury, but he has not taken part in the campaign in any overt way. You could say he brings in influencers connected to him. That may happen eventually, but only if it is in an organic and spontaneous way," Delgado said.
Delgado said the campaign had boosted only 20,000 to 25,000 reais in posts the previous week, paid with money donated by Cury himself, the campaign's only donor so far. He said Cury had an organic base of 8.5 million Instagram followers and grew 30%. In his view, the rise comes because "people are fed up with the polarization between Lula and Bolsonaro". Campaign-linked professionals described the movement as spontaneous, according to Estadão.
The first round of Brazil's presidential election is scheduled for October 4. The next polls will show whether the digital wave holds until election day.