Municipal elections 2016 and 2020 in São Paulo: different results, same alignments

Abstract The 2016 and 2020 municipal elections in São Paulo’s city presented results that deviated from previous ones in the spatial voting patterns and in candidate performance. While the PT in 2016 did not win in any district, with part of these votes "stolen" by Marta Suplicy (PMDB), in 2020 the party, for the first time since 1985, was not among the first place contenders, a position occupied by the PSOL. Through mapping and factor analysis, the present article provides evidence for this deviation and seeks possible explanations by analyzing, through ecological inference, the transfer of votes from one election to another among candidates. The article defends the hypothesis that this transfer is due more to a strategic vote than to electoral realignments. The results show that there was no change in "voter alignment" and the deviations found attributed to the competition strategies adopted by the parties.