Ciro Gomes continues to boom.
Today is election-day in Brazil. Voting is occurring. In previous elections in other countries, metrics used for election analysis have usually stabilized by this point. Not so in Brazil.
The SMI of Gomes is impressively strong, far exceeding what you would expect for such a ‘forgotten’ candidate on election-day. This last boost is unprecedented. We have witnessed candidates making a sprint to the finish line within the last month or two, but Gomes seems to have gone into overdrive just in the last week — especially the last 24 hours. Again, it is unprecedented and even stunning.
Here we are discussing social media metrics and especially SMI or a proprietary indicator that measures Influence on social media. Traditional metrics have him losing badly and coming in third place. Using the latest polls, Gomes is expected to lose by maybe 10 to 14 percentage points behind Haddad, the presumed second place finisher.
As stated in previous posts and reports, Gomes’ SMI had increased to a significant degree in the last month and then received a real boost after the final TV debate on October 4th, just three days ago. The boom on election-day however clearly indicates vote transference. Again, this is unprecedented and though we can see these metrics live we do not fully have a grasp of their impact due to their very late nature.
Until yesterday (yes, this is moving fast), the base case included Gomes giving Haddad a real scare for second place. This scenario had Gomes outperforming his polls and Haddad to a lesser extent underperforming, but Haddad would prevail and move to the second round against Bolsonaro.
Looking at the data now, there is a real chance that Gomes could pull off the seemingly impossible feat of closing a double-digit poll gap on election-day!
Again, this is truly stunning and unprecedented. SMI has been used to analyze elections in the US, Germany, France, Italy, UK, Netherlands, Japan, and others — and such a late SMI boom has never been detected.
It seemed like the SMI increase for Gomes would be too little too late.
But now all bets are off for second place. Bolsonaro is still forecast to receive 42% in the first round of voting, which is still higher than polls. But second place is completely up for grabs — it seems like it is a flip of a coin.
To my knowledge, no other forecaster, poll, or pundit has even hinted at Gomes pulling off such an extraordinary second place finish this late. We are in uncharted territory which seems about right as the Brazilian Election has been one of the most exceptional in recent history.