Lula’s WhatsApp channel surged as he won Brazil’s run-off — but its vote impact is unknown

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won Brazil’s 25 October presidential run-off after finishing behind Flávio Bolsonaro in the first round. During the three weeks between votes, a WhatsApp channel run by congressman André Janones became a huge organising tool for Lula’s supporters. Allies credit it with helping the comeback, but its effect on the vote cannot be measured from its follower count.

The electoral court recorded 64.26 million votes for Lula in the run-off, or 51.79% of valid votes, against Bolsonaro’s 59.83 million. Lula had received about 53.88 million votes in the first round, when 99.99% of ballot boxes had been counted. His increase of roughly 10.38 million votes is a change in the election totals, not a count of voters reached or persuaded by WhatsApp.

Janones used the channel, called *Lula’s Army*, to ask supporters to recruit followers and circulate campaign material on other platforms. Correio Braziliense reported more than two million followers by 7 October; Poder360 observed the count reach 10 million on 23 October, and Folha de S.Paulo reported 10.8 million on election day. Folha also reported that Janones urged followers to offer voters lifts to polling stations. The figures count channel followers, not people who saw a message, acted on it or changed their vote.

The channel’s growth began after the first-round vote, but the channel itself was older. A BBC News timeline says Janones opened it on 5 October. Correio Braziliense and an Estadão report published by Terra say it had existed since 15 April, before Janones turned it into a mass campaign channel.

Other campaigning and changes in turnout complicate any account of what drove Lula’s victory. Abstention fell from 21.08% in the first round to about 19.2% in the second, according to the electoral court. Lula’s campaign had sought to bring back people who missed the first vote, while the Associated Press reported large street demonstrations by his supporters. Political scientists interviewed by the BBC cautioned against attributing the comeback to social media alone; the number of votes, if any, directly influenced by the channel remains unknown.