ANALYSIS: evangelicals and the South region help to stop the drop in Lula’s evaluation, points out director of Quaest | Policy

33% approve of Lula’s government and 33% disapprove, says Quaest

The performance among evangelical voters and those in the south of the country helped to stop the drop in Lula’s (PT) rating, according to the director of Quaest, Felipe Nunes.

As the margin of error is plus or minus 2.2 percentages, the numbers indicate a technical tie between approval and disapproval. This is the first time this has happened since February 2023, the beginning of the PT’s third government.

According to Felipe Nunes, the numbers show that the government managed to stop the drop in valuation. In August 2023, Lula had a 60% approval rating and a 35% disapproval rating (see the infographic below).

“Approval stopped falling, largely because [a avaliação de Lula] It stopped getting worse in the South and among evangelicals. People still have a negative perception of the economy, they think that Lula is not delivering what he promised”, says Nunes.

Among evangelicals, 58% approve and 39% disapprove of Lula. In the last survey, in February, the percentages were 62% and 35%, respectively. As the margin of error is 4 points in this segment, it is not possible to say that the evaluation improved, but that it stopped getting worse, as had been happening since August, when approval was 50% and disapproval was 46%.

The same happens with voters in the South. The current survey showed that 52% disapprove and 47% approve of the president’s work. In August, 59% approved and 38% disapproved (see below).

Nunes states that it is not possible to say whether the change is a result of the federal government’s response to the floods in Rio Grande do Sul.

“But, it is possible to speculate that, obviously, this major event will have an effect on the image and perception that people have about the government”, says the director of Quaest.

The director of Quaest highlights that the Lula government “was not able to change the mood of the electorate”, and that Lula’s disapproval has stabilized at a high level.

For Nunes, one of the factors that help explain this number is people’s perception of the economy.

“We are also seeing positive economic data in Brazil, [porém], the level from which this improvement starts is not yet enough to generate a feeling of improvement. In the American case, there is a lot of talk about the inflationary history. The truth is that inflation has come under control in recent times, but at such a high level that what was bought five years ago [ou] eight years ago, you can’t buy it anymore today. In the Brazilian case, this seems to be very similar to me, we have had control over the last few months and years, in relation to inflation, but we have had a negative history for so many years, that this real purchasing power has been shaken”.

The survey shows, for example, that 43% of people believe that unemployment has increased in the last 12 months and 32% that it has decreased. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), however, the unemployment rate fell from 7.9% in the 4th quarter of 2022 to 7.4% in the 4th quarter of 2023.