O Deus das urnas: religião e eleições presidenciais no Brasil

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the presence of themes and candidates with religious identities and the movements of the religious electorate in presidential elections in Brazil. Its main hypothesis is that religion was consolidated, in the last elections, as a “long-term predisposition”, that is, an essential variable in voting orientation and, for this reason, an obligatory subject to be dealt with by those aspiring to presidential chair. Thus, it focuses its investigation on the electoral processes from 2010 to 2018, examining the uses of religion by candidates, voting patterns and the behavior of religious public opinion in face of the main events of the campaigns. To do this, it uses hemerographic research, the analysis of government plans and the statistical treatment of reports and research databases from the Datafolha institute. The results point to the existence of a new electoral realignment of Brazilian society, no longer based on income, as proposed by Singer (2009), but rather on religious affiliation, with evangelical voters leaning to the right and Catholics to the left of the political spectrum.