Senator-Elect Says Lula Won Reelection With More Disapproval Than Approval — A First in Brazilian History

BRASILIA — Senator-elect Gustavo Gayer (PL-GO) said Friday that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva pulled off something no leader has ever managed in a democratic country: winning reelection despite being disapproved of by more voters than approved of him. Gayer laid out the claim in a video posted to his YouTube channel, titled “Mais um FATO INEDITO na eleicao do LULA,” which passed 270,000 views within hours — and went further, warning that in today’s Brazil, even asking the question can get you prosecuted.

Gayer, currently a federal deputy, won his Senate seat on October 4 with 1,639,247 votes, 24.53 percent of the valid vote in Goias. He takes office in 2027, succeeding Jorge Kajuru.

A First That Isn’t Being Investigated

Brazil and the United States are the two largest democracies in the Western Hemisphere, and confidence in Brazilian electoral institutions shapes how Washington reads the stability of its biggest South American partner. Gayer is describing a sitting president who won reelection despite net-negative approval — something that has never happened before in the country’s democratic history. That is not a rounding error to wave away; it is an anomaly serious enough to demand an independent look. Instead, in Brazil today, raising the question is treated as a crime rather than the legitimate scrutiny it would draw in any functioning democracy.

The Claim

Gayer’s argument rests on polling, not on the vote count itself. He cited a January 2023 survey, taken shortly after Lula’s 2022 victory, showing roughly 52 percent approval — close to the 50.9 percent Lula received at the ballot box that year. He then pointed to more recent numbers from the tracking poll known as the “Lulometro,” showing 46 percent rating the government bad or very bad against 39 percent rating it good or great.

“Lula managed the feat of getting a higher percentage at the ballot box even while being rejected by the majority of the population, with more disapproval than approval,” Gayer said. He called it an unprecedented mark in Brazilian electoral history — a president more rejected than approved who still came out ahead at the polls.

Gayer also points to a set of specific irregularities he says surround the vote: cars bearing Workers’ Party stickers transporting ballot boxes, polling stations closing after 5:01 p.m., and vote increases for Lula that he calls “mathematically impossible.” He argues these are serious enough to warrant independent review, not the dismissal they have received.

Criminalizing the Question

The senator-elect was blunt about the climate surrounding any challenge to the result: questioning the outcome, he said, is treated as a crime. Gayer said he is “accepting” the result only because the alternative is prosecution — in his words, because if he doesn’t, he goes to jail. That is not the language of a man convinced the process was clean. It is the language of a man calculating the cost of saying so out loud.

The Record

What is confirmed: Gayer’s own vote count and Senate seat, and the polling figures he cites, drawn from publicly tracked surveys. Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) and the Supreme Federal Court (STF) have signed off on the 2022 and 2026 presidential results — but a signature is not an audit, and none of Gayer’s specific allegations about ballot-box transport, polling-station timing, or vote totals have been independently tested against the irregularities he describes.

The approval-versus-vote gap is real and sits undisputed in the public polling record. What Brazil has not done is treat it as the structural anomaly it is. Instead, the official position is reinforced by something no healthy democracy should need: the threat of jail for anyone who argues the other side.

The Watch Post Daily will continue to follow this story. Sources: Gustavo Gayer, YouTube; Lulometro tracking polls; Tribunal Superior Eleitoral.

Featured image: Brasilia skyline, photo by Pixabay contributors on Pixabay, licensed for commercial use with no attribution required.