CCTs Boost Incumbent Votes in Brazil Elections—Even When Different Parties?

Data & Methods: Examined municipal election results and survey data from 2002-2010 using propensity score matching to isolate electoral impacts.

Key Findings:

• The study reveals conditional cash transfers (CCTs) consistently increased votes for the incumbent party candidate across all three analyzed elections.
• Counterintuitively, these vote boosts were achieved by incumbents from different parties during consecutive election cycles.
• Importantly, CCTs did not influence party identification or affect legislative election outcomes.

Why It Matters:

This suggests that while CCT programs can significantly impact short-term voting for the current administration in Brazil, they do not appear to drive lasting changes in voter alignment.