Lula's comeback online, exploits of contacts to beat Bolsonaro

Likes online obviously do not automatically translate into votes. However, Lula's social breakthrough in recent days seems to be having the desired effect.

After coming to defeat in the first round significantly behind Bolsonaro, not only in the polls, but also online, last Wednesday the outgoing president totaled 9.9 million likes, comments and shares on his posts on social media. It was the highest daily result of his campaign, but also above all of that of Flávio Bolsonaro, since 14 September.

The data comes from a survey by Projeto Brief, which monitors the official reports of the two candidates, released by Folha of Sao Paulo.

In the month of September, Flávio Bolsonaro led this particular ranking almost always, that is, in 14 of the 17 days analyzed, with an average of 370 thousand daily interactions, compared to Lula's 240 thousand.

On Friday 2 October, on the eve of the first electoral round, the Trumpian candidate broke his personal record for online engagement by totaling 5.5 million interactions, almost four times Lula's result. On the Sunday of the vote, Flávio's victory was overwhelming: 3.9 million, while Lula was far behind at around 170 thousand.

But the comeback began on Monday. That day the outgoing president gathered his young elected representatives, web stars, in Brasilia. Then, listening to their advice, he released a video for the first time in which he addressed Brazilians directly.

That day Lula surpassed his opponent for the first time since the beginning of October.

On Tuesday, the next day, the president's publications recorded 4.8 million interactions. The following day the exploit: the likes more than doubled, driven by a single publication on Instagram by the PT, Lula's party, which alone had over 3 million reposts.