Bolsonaro’s popularity burns while Amazon could make fertile ground for the left

According to the latest study from reputable pollster Datafolha, President Jair Bolsonaro’s rejection rates have risen by five percentage points in just under two months. Besides rattling his popularity around the world, the Amazon forest fire crisis also appears to have eroded domestic support for Mr. Bolsonaro, with 38 percent classifying his government as “bad or terrible,” as opposed to 33 percent at the beginning of July.

Datafolha also found that if the 2018 runoff election were to be held again today, Jair Bolsonaro would lose to Workers’ Party candidate Fernando Haddad, by 42 percent to 36 (a narrow margin for sure, but outside of the confidence interval). In October of last year, Mr. Bolsonaro won the election with 55 percent of valid votes.

Beyond proving that Jair Bolsonaro is the least popular first-term Brazilian president since the 1990s, these numbers also show that from the scorched earth of the Amazon rainforest, there is fertile ground for the country’s left-wing.

Left behind

However, since the beginning of Jair Bolsonaro’s government, the political opposition from the moderate left has been nearly non-existent. With the government proposing sweeping pension and tax reforms, established left-of-center parties have not offered alternative programs. And, non-partisan protests in defense of the education system aside, leading left organizations have seen their ability to mobilize the masses on the street...