Party realignment in Rio de Janeiro (2022): parties under political leadership

Abstract

The partisanship literature identifies four party realignments in Rio de Janeiro and indicates the formation of a sixth, to be verified in the 2022 election (Rodrigues, 2020). This article aims to investigate this realignment with a focus on the personalism of Rio politics. Specifically, we seek to identify the presence of this realignment, its characteristics and its connection with the political leaders of state. The hypothesis is that this realignment is linked to movements coming from prominent political figures. To this end, the TSE base (2018 - 2022) is used as empirical material, observing the aforementioned election in comparison to the previous one. The results confirm the recent realignment, indicating that it is accompanied by an intensification of opposing forces across the ideological spectrum and that it is closely linked to political leaders from both camps.