Three weeks ago, in the En avant avec Fréquence section, we showed that the right reached 2026 without a defined successor because it remained structurally dependent on Jair Bolsonaro’s decision. With Palver’s monitoring of over 100,000 public WhatsApp groups, we use artificial intelligence models to go beyond just counting mentions. Each post was read by a language model trained to identify right-wing users’ explicit support for possible presidential candidates, objectively classifying the preference expressed in each interaction.
At that time, the debate was still almost entirely centered on the former president’s name, and no other candidate came close, either within or outside the family. Since then, the impasse has been broken. Last week, Jair made the move that everyone in the political class was waiting for by naming Flávio Bolsonaro as his successor in the presidential dispute, turning the succession into a real test of the transfer of electoral capital within the Bolsonaro base.
This move provoked an immediate reaction from the political elite and the financial market. On the very day of the announcement, the stock market collapsed, the dollar rose and Faria Lima reacted as if the right had chosen the riskier path.
At the same time, theories were circulating that the appointment would function more as a trial balloon than a definitive decision, a way of testing the reaction of society, the market and the base itself, without closing the door to an alternative outside the family. Additionally, the move gives Flávio the legitimacy to speak on behalf of Bolsonaro, reach political agreements and make decisions on alliances, thus reducing the possibility of a clash within Bolsonaro, like what happened with Michelle Bolsonaro last week.
With previously unpublished data, we are now reproducing the same analysis carried out three weeks ago, expanding the field to other right-wing names, precisely to test whether the movement materialized as a transfer of political capital in the digital environment. The result leaves no doubt.
For the first time since the start of monitoring, Jair Bolsonaro is no longer perceived as the candidate of 2026, overtaken by Flávio, who exceeds the 50% mark of explicit support among right-wing users of the groups analyzed. Even with the explicit naming of the father, there is still a resilient group, around 30%, who prefer the former president’s name for the conflict, regardless of the legal situation.
After the announcement, we can see an immediate flattening of support for the candidacy of other right-wing names, which confirms the central thesis we were supporting: Bolsonaro not only maintained the digital capital of the right, but also demonstrated an effective transfer capacity.
There is still time to roll back the period of disintegration, but as the base solidifies around Flávio, changes in course will have an increasing political cost. Statements such as those according to which the senator admitted the possibility of renouncing his candidacy could have as a backdrop a strategy of targeting the press, like what happened yesterday, where his name made the front page of all the media.
From now on, the main thermometer will be the reaction of the polls and, above all, Flávio’s real capacity for political construction, a variable that should weigh directly in defining the scenario that will reach the elections.
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