Current mayor should be re-elected this Sunday, according to survey

On the eve of the second round of the election for the Mayor of São Paulo, the Datafolha survey shows the current mayor and candidate for re-election, Ricardo Nunes (MDB), with 57% of the valid votes, while federal deputy Guilherme Boulos (PSOL) appears with 43%.

Valid votes are those that really determine the result of an election, as they exclude blank and invalid votes. In the previous survey, released on Thursday, the 24th, Nunes had 58% of the valid votes and Boulos, 42%, which shows a stable scenario.

Datafolha went into the field last Friday, the 25th, and this Saturday, the 26th, and interviewed 2,052 residents of São Paulo. The research captures part of the effect of the last debate between the two candidates and Boulos’ hearing on former coach Pablo Marçal (PRTB), who finished the first round in third place, with 1.7 million votes. The margin of error of the last Datafolha survey before the second round is plus or minus two percentage points, and the confidence level is 95%.

In the institute’s latest survey, considering the total votes, the difference between the two candidates had reduced from 18 to 14 percentage points, with the emedebist having 49% of voting intentions, against 35% for the homeless leader. At the time, 14% of voters said they would vote blank or cancel their vote. Another 2% did not know who to vote for.

Now, with one day left before voting, the current mayor scores with 48% compared to 37% for the psolista. Blanks and nulls make up 12%, while undecideds make up 3%. The research is registered with the Superior Electoral Court under number SP-01690/2024.

In the spontaneous survey, when the interviewee is not presented with a list with the names of the two candidates competing in the second round, Nunes has 39% voting intention (compared to 40% in the last survey) and Boulos, 32% (compared to 30% ). Those who say they will vote for “15”, the mayor’s number, are 4%. And 2% cite “50”, the psolist’s ballot box number. Here, the undecided are 11% and white/null/none, 9%.

Nunes and Boulos had their last confrontation, yesterday (25), before the 9.3 million voters in São Paulo went to the polls to choose the next person to administer the city. The debate, promoted by TV Globo, was tepid and there was an exchange of accusations between the two candidates, but without new facts. The mayor defended his administration and sold himself as a liberal, while the psolist tried to portray his opponent as someone without a pulse and surrounded by suspicions of corruption.

Hours before the meeting, Boulos attended a hearing with influencer Pablo Marçal, in which, for almost an hour, he made nods to the ex-coach’s electorate, speaking, for example, about the entrepreneurship agenda. Also invited to participate, the current mayor did not appear or answer the phone call that Marçal made during the live broadcast.

Participation in the live broadcast was considered successful by Boulos’ team, mainly because he managed to make the influencer defend the null vote on Sunday. The majority of Marçal’s electorate declares their vote for the mayor, therefore, the strategy of canceling the vote tends to benefit the PSOL federal deputy.