The campaign teams of President Lula (Workers' Party) and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (Liberal Party) will step up their appeal to the so-called voto útil, or strategic vote, in which voters abandon trailing candidates to back a probable winner, in the final stretch of Brazil's presidential race. According to Folha de S.Paulo, both camps hope to settle the contest on October 4, without a runoff.
The strategy rests on a new Datafolha poll released on Thursday (17). In the first round, Lula has 39% of voter intentions against 36% for Flávio, a statistical tie. In a simulated runoff, the president has 46% to the senator's 44%, a gap within the two-percentage-point margin of error. Datafolha interviewed 2,002 people aged 16 or older on September 15 and 16. The survey was commissioned by Globo and Folha and registered with Brazil's electoral court, the TSE, under number BR-04029/2026. According to g1, the runoff figures match those of the polls released on September 3 and 11, a sign of stability.
How the strategic vote works
The plan depends on persuading voters whose candidates poll far behind to switch their vote because they see their favorite as a lost cause, Folha reports. Flávio is targeting supporters of Augusto Cury (Avante), Ronaldo Caiado (PSD), Renan Santos (Missão) and Romeu Zema (Novo), who together account for 15% of voter intentions.
Cury, third with 6%, is also a target for Lula. Folha reports that part of the writer's voters say they would back the president in a runoff. Allies of both campaigns say the effort must convince voters that victory is near for the two leaders without offending rivals whose support would be needed in a second round. Lula, the newspaper says, has less room to grow because the other contenders sit to his right; to win, he needs undecided voters, now 3% of the electorate.
The game of the "feeling of victory"
Strategists on both tickets say they must also invest in rejection of the opponent, on top of proving their candidate will win. Members of the two campaigns say Lula leads Flávio when voters are asked who will win the election, the so-called "feeling of victory". For that reason, Flávio wants to spread the sense that Lula is desperate at the prospect of losing in the first round, according to Folha. A new campaign jingle for the PL repeats that "virou" (it has turned).
The first round is set for October 4. To win outright, a candidate needs more than half of the valid votes, which exclude blanks and nulls. If no one clears that bar, the top two advance to a runoff.