Six leading Brazilian presidential candidates faced comparable interviews on TV Globo’s Jornal Nacional between August 24 and 29, creating the campaign’s first broad opportunity to compare their performances under similar conditions. The online reaction, however, produced no single winner.
The findings come from Palver, which monitored conversations in more than 100,000 public messaging groups, as well as discussions on X and Instagram. The company measured posts and messages during the 24 hours after each interview, evaluating every candidate within a separate time window to avoid favoring those interviewed earlier. Because each platform has different patterns of participation, Palver analyzed them separately.
Lula’s Consistent Result
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was the only candidate to perform solidly across all three platforms and was also the most mentioned overall. On X, 67% of opinion-based mentions about Lula were favorable, the platform’s second-highest result. On Instagram and messaging apps, positive and negative reactions were closer to balance.
The most critical discussion followed a question about investigations involving his son, Fábio Luís da Silva. By contrast, comments about Lula’s age and energy were almost entirely favorable across the three platforms, according to the analysis.
Senator Flávio Bolsonaro produced the largest variation between platforms. On X, he was both the second-most discussed candidate and the third-best evaluated, with 41% favorable mentions. Commenters frequently highlighted his calm demeanor during the interview. His results were weaker on Instagram and messaging apps, where approval reached 35% and 38%, respectively.
The main source of criticism against Bolsonaro concerned questions about Daniel Vorcaro’s financing of the film Dark Horse. That subject was strongly associated with his interview across all three platforms, with criticism predominating.
Renan Santos Leads on X
Renan Santos received the highest approval on X, with 78% of opinion-based mentions classified as favorable. He also ranked second in approval on Instagram and messaging apps, with 64% and 59%, respectively, although the volume of discussion about him was lower than that of the leading candidates.
Online conversation focused on Santos’s opposition to “the system.” Palver’s analysis found that even users identified with rival candidates recognized aspects of his performance. Among candidates with lower standing in opinion polls, Santos was the only one to combine favorable reactions with broad attention on at least one platform.
Augusto Cury ranked first in approval on Instagram and messaging apps, but the result requires caution. The volume of opinion-based discussion about him was much smaller than the conversations surrounding candidates who lead the polls. Messaging apps also showed the highest share of automated-looking user activity among the six candidates, in an environment where such behavior was already common.
On X, where discussion of Cury was larger and appeared more organic, approval fell to 15%—close to the results for Romeu Zema and Ronaldo Caiado. Those two candidates had the weakest reach and evaluations across all platforms. Their favorable shares ranged from 8% to 32%, depending on the network. Discussions about Zema centered on Minas Gerais’s debt and his reference to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele; Caiado faced criticism over a claim that millions of Brazilians were controlled by drug trafficking.
This is based on single-source reporting from Folha de S.Paulo and a Palver analysis cited by the newspaper. The overall result suggests that visibility and approval did not necessarily move together during the interview round.