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Rio election march ended at Jair Bolsonaro's residence

YouTuber Nick Shirley filmed sprawling rallies for Flávio Bolsonaro and interviews with top right-wing figures before the crowd stopped outside the former president's residence.

In Rio de Janeiro, a right-wing election march stretched for blocks and ended outside the home where former President Jair Bolsonaro serves a long sentence under house arrest. YouTuber Nick Shirley filmed the crowds and posted the report on Oct. 25, 2026.

Shirley opened the day with supporters boarding buses and vans toward a park rally he described as one of the largest in Rio's history. He framed the vote as a fight between President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's coalition and Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of the confined former leader, with the family's freedom at stake if the left held power.

Jair Bolsonaro led Brazil from 2019 to 2022. After he lost re-election to Lula, prosecutors accused him of plotting a coup to stay in power. Brazil's Supreme Federal Court convicted him in that case and sentenced him to decades in prison, later ordering house arrest for a term Shirley's contacts put at up to 27 years.

Before the main rally, Shirley rode with Lucas, a São Paulo state legislator his interviewees called the most voted official in that city's history and the second-highest vote getter in Brazil. Lucas told Shirley the election was a chance to break left-wing corruption and protect democracy, and he praised Nikolas Ferreira, a 30-year-old federal deputy with more than 20 million social media followers, as the movement's next presidential hope.

Marchers Shirley interviewed said food prices and gang control in Rio's favelas drove them to back Flávio Bolsonaro. One woman said she could not afford meat and rice under Lula. Lucas said drug factions run neighborhoods like parallel governments, taxing residents for gas and internet, and he echoed Flávio Bolsonaro's pledge to treat major traffickers as terrorists rather than victims.

Shirley said he had previously infiltrated Comando Vermelho territory in Rocinha, Rio's largest favela, and interviewed an armed faction member at the hilltop. He called that earlier trip one of the most dangerous assignments he had attempted, and he kept his regular cameraman off the election line for safety.

The procession later moved by train and on foot with Lucas toward Flávio Bolsonaro's circle. Shirley filmed Nikolas Ferreira in the crowd telling him in English that Lula's Workers' Party had held power too long, that Brazil's green-and-yellow flag belonged to the marchers, and that a win would mean war on organized crime.

Lucas said poor and young voters had shifted the Brazilian right from an elite base to a mass movement built on social media. He told Shirley he no longer lived a normal life and that his wife sometimes cried over the security demands that follow his public role.

The march finished in front of Jair Bolsonaro's residence as supporters sang chants against Lula's party. Shirley left the crush on foot after the stop and described the day as peaceful compared with youth unrest he had filmed elsewhere, with no looting in the streets he walked.

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