Lula's Soldiers Turned the Tide with a Twibbon Frame

Brazil's first round closed on October 4, 2026 with Flávio Bolsonaro ahead. The senator from Rio de Janeiro, eldest son of Jair Bolsonaro, took 47.03 percent of valid votes against 45.16 percent for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the sitting president running for a fourth term. Neither man cleared half, and a runoff was set for October 25.

The gap was not only at the ballot box. Through the first round Flávio's content had been drawing around five times the engagement of Lula's, as reported by Folha, and Lula's own campaign had treated the online fight as the secondary one.

Ana Elisa Santos Silva, 21 years old, running for Partido dos Trabalhadores (same party as Lula) in Minas Gerais, was elected to the Chamber of Deputies on October 4 with 524,219 votes. It is the largest vote any woman has received in the state's history, and it made her the youngest federal deputy in Brazil since 1994 and the youngest Black woman to hold a seat in the Chamber's 200 years. 

She campaigned on social media platforms, with an Instagram following in the millions and close to a million more on TikTok. In a video she posted just after securing a seat at the Chamber of Deputies, she pleads to "the entire left" to "understand that we really do need to learn about social media."

André Janones, federal deputy for Minas Gerais, opened a WhatsApp channel, clearly aligned with that idea.

He called the channel Exército do Lula, Lula's Army. It had roughly 50,000 subscribers before the first round. By the morning of October 7 it had 1.8 million, and Janones said he was aiming at 3 million in the weeks that remained. Only Janones posted in the channel. Members reacted with emoji, carried out missions, and brought their people in.

These "missions" were given daily to the channel's members in the form of content creation and boosting publications. This was done so that pro-Lula content could gain more popularity and win over undecided voters.

And then on October 10, Lula's Army published a Twibbon Frame at Twibbonize. The campaign is titled Soldados do Lula, Lula's Soldiers.

Campaign by Exército do Lula

The instruction sits in the campaign description, and it is two actions rather than one. Coloque a moldura na sua foto, troque em todas as redes sociais. "Put the frame on your photo, change it on every social network." The caption supporters carried with it says Somos soldados do Lula e vamos virar o jogo. "We are Lula's soldiers and we are going to turn this around."

Janones updated his Facebook profile to one wearing Soldados do Lula Frame. A post with no caption, link, nor instruction, and it was still shared more than 11,000 times.

Janones's profile via Facebook

The Frame was one instrument among several the channel put in supporters' hands. Janones needn't to announce what to do with the Frame, as the movement was already taking shape with the help of the WhatsApp channel.

Among the missions that travelled furthest was to take a selfie with the thumb and index finger raised into an L, while the person wore the Brazilian national football shirt.

The movement became international. In the closing stretch of the runoff a video organized by the Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho gathered Mark Ruffalo, Tilda Swinton, Javier Bardem, Pedro Almodóvar, Guillermo del Toro, Julie Delpy and Juliette Binoche, all making the L. Gael García Bernal and Joachim Trier took part as well. 

The signal was to give everyone an opportunity, wherever they live, to announce they are Lula, and Lula represents a future they'd like to live in.

In this campaign to turn the tide for Lula, Twibbon plays different roles. 

During the first round of election, Twibbon is simply a tool used by Lula's team to give people a way to visualize their support. This is a common medium that Brazilian politicians officially launch as part of their election campaign.

Compared to challenger Twibbons for the first round winner, Lula's initial loss inadvertently provided Exército do Lula a clearer direction.

The second round faced Lula's supporters with a higher stake. Plus, the Twibbon was not launched by Lula's team, by that time it transformed into a mission given by Lula's Army for themselves.

They had one main goal: dominating the online presence so Lula could win the general election. An individual sporting the Soldados do Lula Twibbon became not just an expression of their support, it was a coordinated move to change an outcome. This is how it turns into a movement.

Expressing support is the lightest thing a Twibbon can do. It can also be an instrument for reaching the outcome people want. The Brazilian elections utilized both fully.

On October 25, Lula took 51.76 percent against Flávio Bolsonaro's 48.24, a margin of about 4.3 million votes out of roughly 123.8 million cast. He was 80 years old. It is his fourth term, and it was won against the son of a predecessor who had been sentenced on September 11, 2025 to 27 years for his part in the 2022 coup plot.

Three weeks earlier he had been two points down. What closed the gap was millions of people taking daily instructions from a WhatsApp channel and carrying them out wherever they could be seen, on their profiles, in their selfies, inside their own networks, and then at the polls.

The mobilization was online. What it changed was real life.