The new Datafolha poll shows that the main challenge facing former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (PT) is to avoid the bloodshed of the votes that would prevent his victory in the first round. The survey conducted yesterday and today basically repeats the results of the survey conducted at the end of May.

In other words, Lula seems to have reached the vote ceiling. It was 48% at the end of May. It has now fluctuated minus one point and has 47%. President Jair Bolsonaro, who received 27 percent of the vote in the previous poll, fluctuated positive by one percentage point. The margin of error is two percentage points.

The good news for Lula is that if there were an election today, he would win the election in the first round. But it turns out that it isn’t. It has between 47% and 41% of its competitors overall – six percentage points, a tight margin in a campaign that’s still a little over three months into the first round in October.

The main problem of PT is not to lose votes. For this, he will have to get through the most intense period of the operation and will be subjected to harsh attacks in this process. Bolsonaro builds an arsenal of fake news and distortion to try to boost the PT’s denial.

Lula also needs to avoid mistakes that he makes on his own. For example, last week, during the FHC administration, he cited a statement that those who kidnapped businessman Abílio Diniz would be sent to serve in their country. Bolsonaro and his supporters took advantage of the incident to say that the PT was defending the bandits. Lula, on his own initiative, supplied the enemy with ammunition and allowed a humanitarian action to be defined as protecting criminals.

In 2002, when Lula was first elected, there was no such sudden repercussion of inept or unhappy statements. Twenty years later, with social networks and live cell phone footage, any poorly calibrated speech could give way to attacks by dissidents, especially a president who uses lies as a political weapon.

For the so-called third way, the new Datafolha research is more like a cold shower. Turnover Gomes (PDT) fluctuated one percentage point positive. It was 7% at the end of May. It scored 8% in the survey conducted yesterday and today.

Simone Tebet (MDB) is numerically behind André Janones (Avante), who scored between 1 and 2%.

With the campaign reaching its final three months, Ciro and Tebet risk losing support in a segment of voters who decide to cast a beneficial first-round vote to get the bill settled as soon as possible. Lula counts on this helpful vote move to win in the first round. But to keep the helpful vote argument alive, the first thing to do is not to lose the votes you already have.