Eduardo Paes (PSD) opened his first television electoral ad riding a horse in the countryside of Rio de Janeiro state, among plantations and rural producers, choosing the Rio far from the capital to start his campaign. On the other side, Douglas Ruas (PL), still unknown to 59% of the electorate according to the latest Genial/Quaest poll, began his campaign in São Gonçalo, the city where he grew up and where his father, Mayor Captain Nelson (PL), is in power.
With different strategies, the two candidates resort to the same logic: associating the rivals with administrations that, according to them, are responsible for the state's current problems. The difference lies in the characters chosen to represent this past they want to leave behind.
Paes points to the administrations of former governors Wilson Witzel and Cláudio Castro, in addition to the recent political crisis experienced by Rio. Ruas, meanwhile, associates the former mayor with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and former governors Sérgio Cabral and Luiz Fernando Pezão, without mentioning in his electoral slot that he was invited to participate in Paes's government.
