Atlas poll depicts a suffering government

A new Atlas Intel poll has rattled the Lula administration, showing slipping approval ratings for both the government and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva himself. For the first time, runoff simulations show Senator Flávio Bolsonaro edging ahead of Lula, by a tenth of a percentage point.

The results have reversed a familiar dynamic. The far right spent years dismissing polls after they badly underestimated Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 election, but is now embracing them as evidence of the Bolsonaro family's hold on the conservative base. The left, meanwhile, is questioning methodologies and raising concerns about sampling.

One analyst close to the government argues that Atlas's online methodology skews toward highly engaged voters — which would explain the unusually low share of undecided respondents compared with pollsters that conduct in-person interviews. The granular numbers also raise eyebrows: Lula polling better among wealthier, more educated voters while facing higher rejection among poorer, less educated ones — the inverse of patterns observed for years.

But the caveats only go so far. There is no favorable reading of these results for Lula.