Rodrigo Pacheco is Schrödinger's candidate in Minas Gerais

Rodrigo Pacheco exists, for now, in two political states at once. For months the senator has been President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's preferred candidate for governor of Minas Gerais, Brazil's second-most populous state. 

Late in March, he quit the center-right Social Democratic Party (PSD) to join the center-left Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) — a clear sign that he would run as part of Lula's coalition. Then, on Tuesday, the head of Lula's Workers’ Party (PT), Edinho Silva, pronounced the Pacheco experiment dead on arrival.

“In Minas Gerais, we were working with Rodrigo Pacheco's candidacy. Unfortunately, he opted not to be a candidate,” he told an investor podcast, adding that the party had reopened talks with other local leaders from both the center-left and center-right.