Just as democratic politics changes, so does the perception about the parties out of which it is composed. This paper’s main purpose is to provide a new and updated ideological classification of Brazilian political parties. To do so, we applied a survey to political scientists in 2018, asking them to position each party on a left-right continuum and, additionally, to indicate their major goal: to pursue votes, government offices, or policy issues. Our findings indicate a centrifugal force acting upon the party system, pushing most parties to the right. Furthermore, we show a prevalence of patronage and clientelistic parties, which emphasize votes and offices rather than policy.