Sure. Gomes is a left winger who doesn’t like Lula as a candidate. Tebet is a right winger who’s votes are probably people who think Bolsonaro is too extreme.
So it’s unlikely people go Gomes → Bolsonaro.
Even if 100% of Tebet voters go to Bolsonaro and 100% of Gomes voters vote null, Lula wins.
So even though I expect Bolsonaro to get a higher percentage of Tebet votes than Lula gets Homes votes, it doesn’t matter. It’s not going to be 100/0 anyway and even if it is, Lula wins.
Lula can’t lose his own voters to Bolsonaro or lose Gomes votes to Bolsonaro.
I guess the wild card would be people going null to Bolsonaro or Lula to null, or no shows deciding to show up next time.
My girlfriend’s step father was a no show in round one but if he shows up for the runoff he’s a Bolsonaro vote because of the transgender bathroom fearmongering.
Lula has some margin for some of that, but not a ton. Given that Lula was expected to get very close to 50% I don’t think too many people will go no show → vote or null → either candidate.
I mean I haven’t thought about it in depth, just that I think the Trump strategy has a much better chance to work in a less stable country in a part of the world where coups are way more common in a very close election.
Bolsonaro arrests Lula, inspires a lunatic to kill Lula, refuses to leave and the military lets him stay in power, etc. Lots of different possibilities. I think Bolsonaro is going to try very hard to stay in power, and after a close election loss I think he’s got a decent chance to pull it off.
