Lula digitizes campaign and seeks lost votes in the Northeast

Lula’s campaign realized something that the right has already discovered for some time: the influencers have become the new electoral cables. And that can change the way you campaign in the second round.

This is not to say that the street campaign has completely lost its importance. The melee still has weight, especially in smaller cities, where the physical presence of candidates and leaders maintains capacity for mobilization. The problem is the scale. It is only a few days before the vote and no candidate can travel to a country the size of Brazil talking directly to all the voters.

That’s where digital comes in. An influencer doesn’t have to be everywhere. He needs to be where his audience is. And there is something even more important: whoever receives the content can share, comment, forward and reproduce. The message no longer depends exclusively on the official structure of the campaign and circulates through a network of people.

The Lula campaign is already preparing a digital task force with elected parliamentarians and influencers to expand its presence on the networks. It is an attempt to gain speed and reach in an election that has entered the shortest and most decisive phase.

But Lula also needs to be physically where he considers there are still votes to be recovered. And at this point, allied governors gain importance. Bahia, Ceará and Piauí have petista governors reelected in the first round, and the three were with Lula in Brasilia to discuss the strategy of the second round.

The choice of the Northeast is not casual. Lula remains far ahead of Flávio Bolsonaro in the region, but lost votes in six of the nine states compared to the first round of 2022. The biggest drop was in Bahia, with more than 208,000 votes less.

This is where the campaign needs to be smart in the distribution of resources. Lula will not be able to be in every city. Governors can run the interior. Local leaders can do hand-to-hand. And influencers can take the message to millions of mobile phones.

The campaign, therefore, begins to run at two speeds: in person, where local leadership can reach; digitally, where the message can go much further.

In the second round, perhaps the most important electoral cable is not the one in the square, but the one on the screen.

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