Brazil’s presidential race has tightened ahead of Sunday’s runoff, with one poll putting the candidates exactly level. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva faces Senator Flávio Bolsonaro on October 25, three weeks after finishing behind him in the first round.

Bolsonaro’s polling lead shrinks

An Ipespe/Abrapel survey released on October 23 gave Bolsonaro 50.5% of valid-vote intentions, against Lula’s 49.5%. That leaves just one percentage point between the candidates in the final stretch of the campaign.

The gap was considerably wider in the pollster’s first runoff survey, released two days after the opening vote. Bolsonaro then had 52.7%, while Lula stood at 47.3%.

Datafolha, another Brazilian polling institute, has recorded a similar narrowing. Its October 22 survey put both candidates at 50% of valid-vote intentions. Earlier runoff surveys had given Bolsonaro leads of 52% to 48%, then 51% to 49%.

Advertisement

A possible reversal, not a prediction

Mauro Paulino, Datafolha’s former director-general, said the movement within the institute’s figures suggested Lula was recovering support. He also saw a slight decline in support for Bolsonaro.

Paulino, now director of Brazil Pulse, said the internal indicators pointed to the possibility of Lula moving ahead. But he cautioned that it was not yet clear whether that shift would happen before Sunday’s vote.

Neither of the latest headline figures puts Lula ahead: Datafolha shows an equal split, while Ipespe/Abrapel gives Bolsonaro a narrow advantage. Both polling sequences nevertheless show a smaller gap than at the start of the runoff campaign.

Two candidates with contrasting political histories

Bolsonaro, the right-wing Liberal Party candidate, won 47.03% of valid votes in the October 4 first round. Lula, running for the Workers’ Party, received 45.16%. Their totals were approximately 56.1 million and 53.8 million votes respectively.

Flávio is the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a prison sentence for plotting to overturn his 2022 election defeat. The senator has said he would fight for his father’s release if elected. He has also promised constitutional reform.

Lula returned to the presidency after Brazil’s Supreme Court annulled his 2017 corruption and money-laundering conviction in 2021, restoring his political rights. He now enters the decisive vote with the polling gap narrowed, but the outcome still unresolved.