Brazil Election Narrows to Lula Versus Flavio Bolsonaro
From a Coup Trial to a Motorcycle Parade
Jair Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year prison sentence for attempting a coup to overturn it. The movement he started did not leave the stage with him. It put his eldest son forward instead. Flavio Bolsonaro, 45, has served as the Liberal Party’s senator for Rio de Janeiro since 2019. He is running to continue the right-wing populist movement his father began. If he wins, he has vowed to pardon his father.
Both campaigns ended on Saturday in Sao Paulo state, Brazil’s economic powerhouse. Lula, 80, is seeking a fourth non-consecutive term in office. He closed with a tour through the city of Sao Paulo, vowing to “defeat the far right.” He framed the election as a choice between “democracy and sovereignty” and “barbarism and corruption Organizers said some 150,000 of his supporters turned up for the rally in Brazil’s largest city. His platform continues the left-leaning Workers’ Party line: welfare programs, state-funded development and income redistribution.
Flavio Bolsonaro spent his last day on a motorcycle parade through Santa Barbara d’Oeste and Americana, two cities in the Sao Paulo countryside. He held up a portrait of his father. The crowd answered with “mito,” the Portuguese word for “legend” that Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters use to refer to him. The senator’s program is hardline security policy and tax cuts. His central argument is the cost of living under Lula, whom he calls “incompetent.” He closed with a prediction: “I am convinced that everything is in place for us to win this election in the first round The son presents himself as both heir and correction. In interviews he describes himself as “more moderate” than his father. He also calls his father “my compass, my point of reference.” On two policies the two Bolsonaros are alike: relaxed gun control laws and skepticism of human-caused climate change. The pardon promise carries the same double message — continuity for the movement, release for the man in prison.
Pollsters Split Over a Razor-Thin Margin
Two polls published on the same day in September pointed in different directions on the same race. BTG Pactual/Nexus surveyed 2,003 people from September 11 to 13. Quaest, in a poll commissioned by Globo, surveyed 2,004 people from September 10 to 13. Both reported a margin of error of 2 percentage points. Both surveys found the two men statistically tied in a potential runoff.
Quaest put Bolsonaro ahead of Lula by 42% to 40% in a simulated second-round runoff, the first time the lawmaker had led numerically in that survey. It was the first time the lawmaker had led numerically in that survey. A September 7 Quaest poll had the two tied at 41% each. Nexus read the same runoff the other way, with Lula ahead 47% to 46%. A week earlier, Bolsonaro had held a 46%-45% lead in the Nexus survey. That was his strongest showing in that poll since March.
The first-round numbers separated the two pollsters even further. Quaest had Lula at 36%, Bolsonaro at 31%, Augusto Cury at 7%, Ronaldo Caiado at 4% and Renan Santos at 4%. Nexus had Lula at 42%, Bolsonaro at 37%, Cury at 6%, Caiado at 5% and Santos at 2%. Same electorate, same fortnight, two different pictures of the same race. The smaller names suggest why the first round is not the last word. A candidate needs more than 50% of valid votes to avoid a second round, or runoff. Otherwise the two frontrunners meet again on October 25.
Neither candidate is likely to win more than 50% of valid votes on Sunday. Brazil’s 160 million registered voters are also choosing governors, senators and other lawmakers that day. Bolsonaro’s strong showing in the polls helped Brazilian assets rally. The senator is considered more market-friendly than the incumbent, and his strong showing in recent polls helped Brazilian assets rally last week.
The Tariff, the Probe and the Made-for-Social Ads
Washington sits in the background of this race. Trump placed a 50% tariff on Brazilian imports in response to Jair Bolsonaro’s coup trial, which the US president called a ‘witch hunt. He has called that trial a “witch hunt.” [1] A tariff is a tax collected at the border on goods entering a country. The measure was aimed at a court case, not at a trade dispute — an economic instrument used for a political purpose. Lula’s team has cast the Bolsonaro movement as a threat to Brazil’s sovereignty, pointing to the ties both Flavio and Jair Bolsonaro have with Trump.
There is also a legal file. In September it was revealed that Flavio Bolsonaro is under investigation for alleged corruption, money laundering and tax evasion tied to the financing of a biopic about his father. He has denied any misconduct.
