Brazilians vote Sunday in a presidential runoff between Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, a close ally of President Donald Trump, and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Final polls show a dead heat, while prediction markets favor Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, finished first in the October 4 first round with 47.03 percent of valid votes to Lula's 45.16 percent, defying surveys that had shown Lula ahead.
The runoff will decide whether Latin America's largest country joins a growing bloc of right-leaning governments aligned with Washington. Bolsonaro's runoff lead has steadily narrowed. Datafolha showed him ahead 52 to 48 percent of valid votes on October 8 and 51 to 49 percent on October 15.
Its poll released Thursday had the two tied at 50 percent. Nearly all of those results fall within the polls' margins of error. An average compiled by The Rio Times puts Bolsonaro at 50.9 percent and Lula at 49.1 percent.
"Lula has narrowed the gap, but not enough; the margin is very tight and within a dead heat. It could go either way," Gimena Sánchez, director for the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America, told Newsweek. Most major pollsters had Lula ahead going into the October 4 vote.
Datafolha, one of Brazil's most closely watched pollsters, put Lula at 45 percent of valid votes and Bolsonaro at 42 percent in its final survey. AtlasIntel/Bloomberg had Lula ahead 47 to 44.1 percent, and CNT/MDA showed him leading 47.8 to 42.1 percent. Quaest came closest, with Lula up 46 to 45 percent.
Bolsonaro instead finished nearly two points ahead. Compared with Datafolha's final numbers, that was a swing of almost five points toward him. It was not the first time a Bolsonaro outran the surveys, with his father also beating his polling in 2022.
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