Cleitinho Azevedo leads voting intentions in Minas with a campaign focused on the interior and intense use of social media

The first weeks of the campaign by Cleitinho Azevedo (Republicans), leader in all voting intention scenarios for the Government of Minas Gerais, have followed and expanded the guide that was responsible for popularizing the then candidate for the Senate during the 2022 election.

While most of the opponents in the electoral race — such as Alexandre Kalil (PDT) and Patrus Ananias (PT), technically tied for second place in the projections — concentrated appearances on official engagements in the capital Belo Horizonte, Cleitinho has been taking the opposite path.

The start of the campaign is marked by agendas in the countryside, live broadcasts on social media and the promotion of stickers on highways.

On August 19, during the first official week of the electoral campaign, Cleitinho broadcast a live broadcast on his Instagram profile directly from BR-262, on the stretch between Nova Serrana and Bom Despacho, in one of the sticker actions.

During the broadcast, posted under the caption "live with the people", the candidate himself stuck stickers on the cars of supporters who parked on the side of the road and eventually lined up to exchange a word or take a photo.

"This is the structure here: sticker, telephone and running around Minas Gerais to win the election", said the candidate in another video, posted on the same day, which brings together scenes of the action.

According to Cleitinho's advisors, the strategy prioritizes direct contact with rural voters, "where the largest population in the state is located", and aims to "listen to regional demands and present proposals eye to eye".

The campaign reported that it guides supporters so that the actions, described as spontaneous demonstrations, are carried out in accordance with applicable legislation and safety and traffic rules. When contacted, the PRF (Federal Highway Police) and the Way-262 concessionaire, which manages the stretch, did not say whether there were records of incidents related to the sticker.

The campaign did not say how many actions of this type it has already carried out, limiting itself to saying that they took place in different parts of the state. The candidate's agenda included, in recent weeks, stickers in São Sebastião do Oeste, Itaúna, Formiga and Leandro Ferreira, cities in the center-west of Minas Gerais.

On Saturday (29), Cleitinho was in Frei Gaspar, where he held a platform with Mayor Jackeliny Nascimento (PT), who went viral after rejecting the party's determination and supporting the Republican candidate for government. On Sunday (30), he left for the north of the state and completed schedules in Pirapora, Brasília de Minas and Montes Claros.

The first official meeting with the voters of Belo Horizonte, in turn, is scheduled to take place on Sunday (6), the date of call for an event in the Barreiro region.

Previously, according to the candidate's schedule, Cleitinho visited the city only twice: on August 16, to participate in a debate held by TV Bandeirantes, and on the 19th, the date of the live broadcast, a day reserved for closed meetings and interviews with broadcasters.

For Roberto Andrés, professor at UFMG and executive director of the political training and mobilization platform Bonde, the strategy reflects the distribution of the electoral college in Minas Gerais, in which votes are not concentrated in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte.

"Cleitinho knows how to play this game. People from the countryside get jealous if the politician looks like he favors the capital, because the opposite doesn't happen", says the professor. "So he goes after the vote in the interior thinking that, by doing so, he won't lose the vote in the capital. As a digital phenomenon, he manages to be very present in the metropolitan region."

According to Andrés, the back-and-forth around the officialization of his candidacy contributed to the candidate obtaining a greater digital reach than when he was elected senator, in 2022, with 41.52% of valid votes.

Data from Google Trends shows a spike in searches for the politician's name between the end of July and the beginning of August.

During this period, Cleitinho announced his withdrawal from the election, in a video in which he appears crying, interrupted the party's national convention to ask for his candidacy and managed to make his ticket official in the dispute.

"Building attention on networks depends on the production of facts, often controversial, that generate this type of magnetism. Cleitinho knew how to do this very well in the pre-campaign", says the professor. "The candidate who knows how to operate digitally and, at the same time, relies on an analogue machine, which is the Republican party, has a very big advantage over the others."

The Datafolha survey on August 21 showed Cleitinho with 32% of voting intentions, and Patrus and Kalil tied in second place, with 12% each.