Sep 23, 2026 · 1 hr 5 min · 9 segments
Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro are statistically tied less than two weeks before Brazil's first round, and a flood of contradictory polls is feeding claims that pollsters are rigging the race. Rafael…
Rafael NishimuraGuest
Gustavo RibeiroHost
Now, Rafael, you say And you often say this, that polls are not crystal balls.
And that's something that pollsters themselves say sometimes, and they have said that, especially over the past few years after big misses.
Now, the pushback that I would have is that they only say that when they miss the results, because when they get it right, They are the first ones to use the proximity between their results and the actual voting numbers as proof that they are incredible and that they are reliable.
So I'm not criticizing you for saying it, but in Poster's case, it seems like they want to have their cake and eat it.
I will say that I think especially given the most recent developments in Brazil, not only like recent as of a month or two months ago with the TSE, right? Like the Superior
Putting a proposal to create a seal of accuracy, a polling accuracy, right? But also, going back to 2022, when there were some congressmen proposing some...
Proposing a bill to penalize posters if they didn't get the result right, to the point of even putting in prison the person responsible for the poll, right? And so because of those recent developments, I think that at least a lot of the pollsters have been a little bit more careful in presenting that, that polls are not predictive of the elections.
And I hope that even if right like some of those posters now coming uh to election day the first round at least even if they are relatively close to the election results i hope that they don't use that as a as a way to promote that because i agree with you if it's it it goes both ways right like polls they are snapshots of the electorate like uh and that's true whether they get they are close to election results.
And it's something that really I have been trying to push back a little bit to the pollsters that say, hey, You shouldn't also say that if you get
I remember going to a debate with three major posters, and this was pre-pandemic, and two legacy ones and a more modern one.
And the legacy ones were dismissing that, oh, this is just like when you put on the home page of a website, like, do you like strawberries or not? This is as scientific as that.
Now, Rafael, you say And you often say this, that polls are not crystal balls.
And that's something that pollsters themselves say sometimes, and they have said that, especially over the past few years after big misses.
Now, the pushback that I would have is that they only say that when they miss the results, because when they get it right, They are the first ones to use the proximity between their results and the actual voting numbers as proof that they are incredible and that they are reliable.
So I'm not criticizing you for saying it, but in Poster's case, it seems like they want to have their cake and eat it.
I will say that I think especially given the most recent developments in Brazil, not only like recent as of a month or two months ago with the TSE, right? Like the Superior
Putting a proposal to create a seal of accuracy, a polling accuracy, right? But also, going back to 2022, when there were some congressmen proposing some...
Proposing a bill to penalize posters if they didn't get the result right, to the point of even putting in prison the person responsible for the poll, right? And so because of those recent developments, I think that at least a lot of the pollsters have been a little bit more careful in presenting that, that polls are not predictive of the elections.
And I hope that even if right like some of those posters now coming uh to election day the first round at least even if they are relatively close to the election results i hope that they don't use that as a as a way to promote that because i agree with you if it's it it goes both ways right like polls they are snapshots of the electorate like uh and that's true whether they get they are close to election results.
And it's something that really I have been trying to push back a little bit to the pollsters that say, hey, You shouldn't also say that if you get
I remember going to a debate with three major posters, and this was pre-pandemic, and two legacy ones and a more modern one.
And the legacy ones were dismissing that, oh, this is just like when you put on the home page of a website, like, do you like strawberries or not? This is as scientific as that.
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