The Evolution of Far-Right Strategies

The narrow margin by which Bolsonaro lost to Lula in Brazil's 2022 Presidential election indicated that far-right ideas still hold a strong appeal for voters, while also opening space for new extremist leaders to emerge. As I write this text, Brazil has just gone through its 2024 Municipal elections and one player has made extraordinary use of this opportunity: Pablo Marçal, running for mayor of São Paulo – the country's biggest city and a bellwether for national politics.

Marçal’s campaign marks an evolution of far-right electoral strategies in the country, and its effectiveness is likely to attract populist imitators around the world. As a coach and influencer who had millions of followers before becoming a candidate, Marçal used his extensive digital presence and solid base of supporters to challenge traditional electoral norms and disrupt the political landscape – winning 28,4% of the votes in a very close first round race (not enough to make it into the final round, but enough to position him as a serious candidate for 2026 and disrupt Bolsonaro's hegemony as leader of the far-right).

At the core of Marçal’s strategy lies a simple idea, inspired by controversial influencer Andrew Tate: decentralizing content production and distribution by organizing followers and offering them financial incentives to make campaign materials go viral. Rather than relying solely on his own campaign team and social media channels, Marçal encouraged his supporters to create and share videos and memes about his speeches and public appearances. Known as “cut contests”, and organized on a Discord channel with tens of thousands of members, Marçal offered cash rewards to whoever could produce the most viral pieces of content. With so many supporters competing and only a few rewarded, the internet was flooded with Marçal-related content at a much lower price than he would have had to pay for ads.

This model not only increased the volume, reach and engagement of content promoting his candidacy, but also made it more difficult for authorities to monitor his campaign activities. Although the strategy goes directly against Brazil's electoral laws, which prohibit candidates from paying for voters’ support, Marçal used it for a long time before being stopped by the electoral court (starting months before the official electoral period), and his supporters continued producing content even after the court took action.