What explains the difference between Ibope and Datafolha?
Intentional votes gathered by the two research institutes for the first round coincide; the big difference lies in the second-round simulation; while Datafolha, by Mauro Paulino, points to a technical tie between President Dilma Rousseff (PT), with 44%, against 40% for Aécio Neves, and a victory of only seven points between Dilma and Campos, in Ibope, by Carlos Augusto Montenegro, Dilma wins by a wide margin in both scenarios: 41% against 33%, against Aécio, and 41% against 29%, against Campos; the Minister of Communications, Paulo Bernardo, said this Wednesday that, between one survey and the other, "there should be a difference of 10 million votes"; "It's very far off," he stated.
247 - In the last municipal elections, the Datafolha institute committed one of the most egregious errors in its history. On the eve of the election, it released a poll showing a three-way tie for first place – José Serra (PSDB) with 28%, Celso Russomano (PRB) with 27%, and Fernando Haddad (PT) with 24% – when in reality only two qualified, Serra (30,75%) and Haddad (28,98%), and the third, Celso Russomano, barely garnered any support (21,6%). Now, in this presidential election, Datafolha's results are beginning to raise doubts from the outset.
In the poll released last Thursday, the 17th, the Datafolha survey shows President Dilma Rousseff (PT) with 36% of voting intentions, PSDB candidate Aécio Neves with 20%, and Eduardo Campos (PSB) with 8%. These numbers are quite similar, considering the technical tie, to those of Ibope released on Tuesday evening, the 22nd. In that poll, Dilma has 38%, Aécio 22%, and Campos maintains 8%.
The big difference lies in the second-round simulation. While Datafolha registers a technical tie between Dilma (with 44% of voting intentions) and Aécio (with 40%), and a small gap between Dilma (45%) and Campos (38%), Ibope points to a clear victory for the PT candidate in both scenarios, when she faces the PSDB senator (41% against 33%) and when she competes with the former governor of Pernambuco (41% against 29%).
The Planalto Palace itself reacted with surprise to last week's Datafolha poll, according to... reported by Eduardo Guimarães, from the Blog da CidadaniaAccording to him, the research was received "with astonishment and even indignation" by Dilma's government team, which questioned, for example, the logic of the PSDB candidate remaining stagnant in the first round and gaining 20 percentage points in a possible second round, while the PT candidate would only gain eight.
The Minister of Communications, Paulo Bernardo, said this Wednesday, the 23rd, that he sees a large difference between the two surveys and stressed that "election polls don't conclude anything." "The polls leave us somewhat unable to draw conclusions. If you look at Datafolha and Ibope, there should be a difference of 10 million votes between them. That's a huge difference. Since I'm not a researcher, I'm just looking at this. It serves as food for thought, but polls don't conclude anything," he stated.