Pull up a chair, this one goes better with a coffee. According to Folha de S.Paulo, a wave of foreign accounts tied to US president Donald Trump's orbit has been posting paid content to promote Flávio Bolsonaro's surge on Polymarket, an American prediction market blocked in Brazil since April. Between Friday (18) and Monday (21), the newspaper counted at least 11 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, spreading the material, at times with open praise for the candidate, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro.
Quick primer for newcomers: Polymarket is a prediction market, where users bet money on the outcome of future events, the Brazilian election included. The posts carry a "paid partnership" label with no named sponsor, and the American press has already reported that the company habitually hires influencers to run promotions. Folha splits the accounts into two groups: influencers aligned with Trump and his MAGA movement, and profiles with a newsroom look that cover geopolitics, such as the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
Who is posting
The names set the tone. One is former Republican congressman Matt Gaetz, a Trump ally with 3.4 million followers who was once nominated for US attorney general and withdrew amid sex crime investigations he denied. "Flávio can save Brazil. This is the big prize in the Americas," Gaetz wrote on Monday. The account UHN Plus, with 1.2 million followers, which operates from Florida and posts right-wing content, ran the ad as well.
The other group shows up in the Diário do Centro do Mundo: on Sunday (20), war-monitoring "OSINT" profiles such as Iran Observer and OSINTdefender posted nearly at the same time the same Polymarket chart, with Flávio around 58% and President Lula at 42%. Iran Observer wrote that Lula was "losing the presidential election in Brazil" and described Flávio as "very pro-US", enough to pull Brazil out of the BRICS group.
A bet is not a poll
One useful caveat, as DCM explains: the Polymarket figures are prices of contracts traded on the platform, a different animal from a voter poll. For comparison, the Datafolha survey released Thursday (17) had Lula at 39% and Flávio at 36% in the first round, with Lula ahead 46% to 44% in a possible runoff. A survey by Aos Fatos, a Brazilian fact-checking outlet, dated September 4, had already found more than 100 Brazil election posts promoting Polymarket on Instagram through influencer pages and partner websites.
In electoral terms, the ground is delicate. Brazilian law bans third parties from boosting campaign propaganda and forbids foreign donations, in cash or in kind. Reached by Folha, Flávio's campaign said it has no knowledge of the ads. Polymarket itself lists Brazil among the countries where its services are geo-blocked and says it prohibits the use of VPNs to get around the restriction.
Where to watch: the posts are still up on X, with the "paid partnership" tag on display. The Brazilian election market on Polymarket, in turn, does not open for readers browsing from Brazil, where the platform has been blocked since April.