Jerônimo sees the election in Bahia as "nationalized" and potential "damage" due to high abstention.

247 - Jerônimo Rodrigues, the PT candidate for governor of Bahia and the favorite to win the election, assesses... interview with Valor Econômico that the election in the state is "nationalized," even if his opponent, the former mayor of Salvador, ACM Neto, "doesn't want it to be."

“The election is nationalized, no matter how much the former mayor doesn't want it. Neto is an opportunist. An example of this is that, when he ran for mayor in Salvador, he presented himself as Neto and hid ACM's name, because the capital always voted against his grandfather. Now that he's running for governor and knows that many people in the interior still remember his grandfather, he brought back ACM's name and revived the jingle. A ridiculous thing, without any creativity. It's opportunism with his grandfather; he attacked Lula and now he's saying that voters can vote for whomever they want in the national election. Neto campaigned for Bolsonaro in 2018, appointed people to positions, was with the president on all his visits to Bahia. He was always right there, and now he's preaching neutrality?” he asked.

He states that former president Lula should travel to the state – the country's fourth-largest electoral college – once again during the second-round campaign. “We agreed with Lula to bring him back again. He will talk to the campaign. It helps us and will be very good for him too. Bolsonaro's visit before the first round was a fiasco, just like Neto's campaign in the interior.”

When questioned about the potential impact of voter abstention on the PT (Workers' Party), given that Bahia was one of the states with the highest abstention rates in the first round, Jerônimo pointed out that the party is working hard to reverse the situation. “We're talking about almost a quarter of the electorate. We've already asked the Regional Electoral Court (TRE) for help in reversing this absence. I think there's a disadvantage for us, because those who are always absent from voting are the people who live furthest from the polls, the rural population in some districts, villages, hamlets, quilombos (former slave settlements), and riverside communities. These votes tend to go to number 13, to Lula, since he managed to bring politics to those grassroots levels. Our strategy seeks to spark a debate about this. We are in dialogue with mayors to ensure transportation.”

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