With promises to combat crime and protect women, the candidates for the Presidency and Government of São Paulo ended their electoral advertising on TV in the first round on Thursday (1st). The programs also had attacks between opponents and appeals to indebted voters.
Alongside the proposals, the programs gave space to episodes that defined the campaign, including the crisis in the STF (Supreme Federal Court) involving ministers and former banker Daniel Vorcaro, from Banco Master, and cases such as the "Dark Horse", the ban on betting and the false news that Our Lady of Aparecida would lose the title of patron saint of Brazil.
In the presidential dispute, the campaign of Lula (PT), candidate for reelection, adopted the attack as the axis of TV advertising, a stance that usually belongs to the opposition. Catchphrases such as "Flávio, the worst of the Bolsonaros" and "talking is Flávio, doing is Lula" were repeated throughout the election hours.
The pieces associated the senator with his father's government, stating that the Bolsonaro family made the country more violent and placed more than 1 million weapons on the streets. In the final stretch, the campaign brought together excerpts from television news about accusations against Flávio.
Among them are the "Dark Horse" case, in which Flávio is appointed as Vorcaro's interlocutor in the search for resources for a film about Jair Bolsonaro, alleged links with militias in Rio and the accusation that he had participated in orgies. The play ended with the announcer saying “Bolsonaros, never again”.
Flávio, in turn, combined criticism of the Lula government with an attempt to present himself as a target of the PT offensive. In one of the programs, he said that opposing propaganda downloaded and edited his speeches, and that voters would not see this type of content from him.
The senator's criticisms focused on the cost of living and debt, topics that professor Camilo Aggio, from UFMG (Federal University of Minas Gerais), considers central in the election. Flávio also tried to stir up anti-PT sentiments among voters and target supporters of Ronaldo Caiado (PSD) and Augusto Cury (Avante).
This year, TV advertising referred to the internet several times. Caiado, for example, showed excerpts from an interview with Flow on one of his programs and ended with a QR code that led to the full video, which Aggio evaluates as a strategy for a campaign with fewer resources.
Cury also placed a QR code in his advertisement. Flávio reproduced the tradition of lives on the internet created by his father, in addition to creating what he called "TV Celular", a type of digital broadcaster with continuous programming 24 hours a day on YouTube.
The dispute takes place in the midst of a campaign with the lowest number of television debates in the first round since 1998, when there were no confrontations between candidates on TV. Since 2002, no presidential election has had fewer than three debates in the first round.
For political scientist Carlos Melo, professor at Insper, the absence of leaders follows a risk calculation. “With someone with 40%, you can gain very little and lose a lot,” he says.
Daniela Costanzo, researcher at Cebrap (Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning), relates the reduction in debates to increasingly digital campaigns and a more crystallized electorate.
In the dispute for the Government of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), a candidate for reelection with the possibility of winning in the first round, did not mention his opponent or the privatizations of Sabesp and CPTM, the target of criticism from users. His plays, more than twice as long as those of Fernando Haddad (PT), presented government programs for each stage of life, from birth to old age.
The governor's propaganda highlighted actions for mothers of atypical children, such as TEA Centers, for young people, such as Provão Paulista, for the elderly and women. Tarcísio said that he was looked after by his wife when he had cancer and displayed the SP Mulher Segura app, used to record incidents and call the police.
Haddad, who faces rejection from 48% of the São Paulo electorate according to Datafolha, ended programs asking voters to put aside "political passions" and give him a chance. Other pieces listed federal policies associated with it, such as Prouni and Income Tax exemption for those earning up to R$5,000.
Look to the example of those women
The central focus on female voters was a common denominator in campaigns on topics such as public safety, health and employment.
When it came to security, Haddad, for example, used the figure of a woman returning home at night. When the subject was income and tax burden, Flávio Bolsonaro illustrated with a dramatization of a mother and her daughter in the market. When the agenda was professional training, Tarcísio de Freitas brought real examples of women, from manicurists to welders. Both Flávio and Tarcísio brought their wives to TV.
The figure of the black woman also populated electoral hours. Presenters of Lula, Flávio, Caiado, Haddad and Tarcísio's programs were black, in an election without candidates with women competing for the Presidency and the Government of São Paulo.
For positions in the Legislature, the São Paulo PL also put the spotlight on female candidates, with days in which only women were announced.
For the Senate, in particular, the competitive candidacies of Marina Silva (Rede) and Simone Tebet (PSB) were treated as outsiders by opponents.
Data from 2026 indicate that 52.4% of homes have a woman as head of the family. It was from 2022, the last year of the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government, that the proportion of women in the house surpassed that of men.
In the 2026 elections, they are also more undecided than men. According to Datafolha, 26% have not yet decided who to vote for, compared to 14% of them — on average, 21% of the total electorate say they are undecided.
If there is a second round, free voting hours will resume next Friday (9) and will continue until October 23rd. This time, only with the two candidates who remain in the race. Candidates will receive exactly the same advertising time: ten minutes for each position.
