Lula increases his lead over Flávio Bolsonaro in digital popularity on the eve of the second round

President and reelection candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) maintained his lead and gained an advantage in digital popularity over his opponent, senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL), on the eve of the second round.

On Saturday (24), the difference between the two candidates was 6.5 points in the IPD (Digital Popularity Index) of the research and consultancy company Quaest. Before the Globo debate, on Thursday (22), the distance was 4.1 points.

The distance of 6.5 points is similar to that recorded immediately after the Band debate (6.7).

Calculated by an algorithm that collects and processes 175 variables from the platforms Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, YouTube, Google and Wikipedia, the index provides results ranging from 0 to 100 points.

Now, Lula scores 82.7 points on the index, gaining 1.6 points compared to the 22nd, when he had 81.1 points. Flávio Bolsonaro recorded 76.2 points, a drop of 0.8 points compared to the same date. Monitoring was carried out until Saturday (24).

The two candidates had the highest number of interactions in the final stretch on the last day of the campaign.

Flávio made 29 posts, had an average of 19 thousand comments per post, the closest he came to Lula in this indicator, and had 16% of the total comments, his highest share since October 17th. Lula, in turn, made 115 posts and received 156 thousand likes and 24 thousand comments per publication on average.

On the day, Flávio gained 161 thousand followers on Instagram, and Lula, 221 thousand. The PT member also registered the biggest search for his name since the first round.

"The digital campaign ends as it was during almost the entire second round: Lula with more presence and volume of conversation, Flávio Bolsonaro with more revenue per publication. The day before, the two had the best day of interaction in the final stretch", says Felipe Nunes, director of Quaest.

IPD monitors six metrics: presence on the main social networks; fame (visibility and reach of content); engagement; mobilization (spontaneous sharing and mentions); valence (ratio between positive and negative reactions); and interest (accesses and recent volume of searches).

The indicator's algorithm is also calibrated to reduce the "noise" of networks, especially bots, to get as close as possible to the voter's real behavior.

The director of Quaest states that the IPD has been a kind of thermometer of the election results. "There is a high level of correlation between what the IPD shows and what the ballot box shows", he states, adding that the correlation today is 86%.

Then leader of the IPD, Flávio Bolsonaro finished the first round ahead of Lula with 47.03% of valid votes, compared to 45.16% for his rival.