Brazil Poll: Flávio Bolsonaro Widens Runoff Lead Over Lula to 47–45
Brazil · Elections
Key Facts
—The headline. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro takes 47% against President Lula’s 45% in a runoff simulation — the widest gap of the 2026 campaign in the PoderData/Aya series.
—The confirmation. AtlasIntel/Bloomberg put Flávio ahead in its runoff series for the first time, 46.4% to 46.2% — inside the one-point margin of error, but a symbolic flip: Lula had led every round of that survey until now.
—Who ran them. PoderData/Aya interviewed 3,000 voters by telephone between September 6 and 9 (margin of error 1.8 points; TSE registration BR-04914/2026). AtlasIntel, commissioned by Bloomberg, interviewed 5,000 voters September 4–9 through random digital recruitment (margin of error one point; BR-01452/2026).
—The trend. PoderData shows a second consecutive round with Flávio numerically ahead — 45–44 on September 3, now 47–45. In mid-August, Lula still led 46–45. AtlasIntel had Lula up 47.1% to 42.6% in late August.
—The first round. PoderData: Lula 38%, Flávio 36%, writer Augusto Cury 10% — the third man still holds the balance of the election. AtlasIntel: Lula 43.0%, Flávio 37.4%, Cury 6.6%, Renan Santos 6.5%.
—The Cury scenarios. Against Cury, Lula trails 43–44, a technical tie. Flávio would beat Cury 43–36.
—Rejection. AtlasIntel: 52.5% say they would not vote for Lula under any circumstance, against 49.6% for Flávio, per CNN Brasil’s reading of the data. Palver measured 54% rejection for Lula and 49% for Flávio.
—The mood. PoderData: 51% disapprove of Lula’s personal performance and 41% approve. Blank and null intentions fell from 8% to 6%, and the undecided from 3% to 2%. The first round is on October 4; a runoff, if needed, on October 25.
The latest PoderData/Aya national survey puts Flávio Bolsonaro two points ahead of Lula in a second-round scenario — his second consecutive lead and the widest gap of this series in the 2026 campaign — and a new AtlasIntel/Bloomberg poll has now confirmed the shift with Flávio’s first numerical lead in that series, with Augusto Cury holding a decisive tenth of the electorate in the first round.
A Two-Point Gap That Keeps Growing
The poll published on Thursday, September 10, gives Flávio Bolsonaro 47% of voting intentions in a runoff against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who takes 45%. Blank and null votes account for 6% and the undecided for 2% — both shrinking, a sign that the electorate is consolidating three weeks before the first round.
PoderData, working with the Aya Institute, conducted 3,000 telephone interviews between September 6 and 9. The margin of error is 1.8 percentage points, and the survey is registered with the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) under number BR-04914/2026, as Brazilian law requires.
The movement inside the series matters more than any single number. In mid-August, Lula led the same simulation 46–45. On September 3, Flávio edged ahead 45–44 for the first time in this pollster’s sequence. Now the gap is two points — technically still within reach of a statistical tie, but the direction is no longer ambiguous. When we last covered this series on September 1, the runoff was deadlocked at 44–44.
AtlasIntel/Bloomberg Confirms: Flávio’s First Lead in the Series
The confirmation arrived the same day: a new AtlasIntel runoff simulation, commissioned by Bloomberg, puts Flávio at 46.4% against Lula’s 46.2% — the first time the senator has held a numerical lead in this poll series. The 0.2-point gap is well inside the one-point margin of error, so statistically the race remains tied. But the symbolic weight is real: since Bloomberg began commissioning the AtlasIntel survey for the 2026 cycle, Lula had always led the runoff matchup, most recently by 47.1% to 42.6% in late August. Flávio has gained almost four points in about two weeks.
In the first-round scenario, AtlasIntel still has Lula in front with 43.0%, followed by Flávio at 37.4%, writer Augusto Cury at 6.6% and Renan Santos at 6.5%. In the previous round, Lula scored 43.4% and Flávio 33.7% — meaning the senator has consolidated right-leaning support faster than the president has grown.
The survey also tested voter fears: 45.9% say they fear a Flávio Bolsonaro victory, while 45% fear Lula’s re-election, and 8.8% say both outcomes worry them equally. On issues, respondents rated Flávio stronger on the economy (49% to 44%) and security (49% to 42%), while Lula led only on environmental protection.
First Round: Cury Still Holds the Balance
In PoderData’s first-round scenario, Lula leads with 38%, followed by Flávio at 36% — inside the margin of error — and Augusto Cury, the psychiatrist and writer running for the Avante party, at 10%. No other candidate reaches 3%.
Cury’s tenth of the electorate is the prize both camps will fight for after October 4. On Monday, the president of the Solidariedade party, federal deputy Paulinho da Força, declared his vote for Cury with a sentence that captures the mood of that electorate: he would not vote for Lula “under any circumstances,” and he would not vote for Flávio either. Cury is positioning himself as the vessel for voters exhausted by fifteen years of polarization.
The runoff simulations confirm how fluid that bloc is. In a Cury–Lula matchup, Cury wins 44–43, a technical tie. In a Flávio–Cury matchup, the senator wins 43–36. In other words: Cury’s voters lean right when forced to choose, but not monolithically — which is why both campaigns court him and attack him in the same breath.
Four Pollsters, One Message: A Dead Heat
The AtlasIntel release lands on top of two other fresh surveys pointing the same way. Meio/Ideia, a telephone poll of 1,500 voters conducted September 4 to 7 with a 2.5-point margin of error, put the first round at Lula 38.4% and Flávio 37.3%, and the runoff at an exact 46–46 split. Palver, an online survey of 5,000 voters taken September 4 to 7 with a maximum margin of error of 2.5 points, found the first round tied at 40% each, with Renan Santos third at 11% and Cury at 4%; in Palver’s runoff simulation, Flávio leads 46% to 44% — again inside the margin of error, again numerically ahead.
Earlier in the week, Nexus, working for BTG Pactual, published its first Flávio lead — 46–45 — on September 8, as we reported then. Quaest, on the same day, showed a dead heat at 41% each. Taken together, four separate pollsters now place the second round within the margin of error — a consolidation of the trend that has defined the campaign since August.
Pollsters disagree because their methods differ — telephone versus face-to-face, how they treat the undecided, how they weight the poor Northeast against the richer South. Regional surveys underline the geography of the race: Quaest found Lula at 58% in first-round intentions in Maranhão in late August, while a Gerp survey in the same period put Flávio ahead 48–41 in a São Paulo runoff. The Northeast wall holds for Lula; the Southeast is where the election will be decided.
Approval, Blank Votes and the Road to October
PoderData also measures the president’s personal performance: 51% disapprove and 41% approve. That ten-point negative gap has been a feature of the campaign since June, and it is the number Lula’s strategists watch most nervously — incumbents rarely win re-election with a majority of the country against them, though Lula has done improbable things before.
Two quieter numbers explain why the race tightened. Blank and null intentions fell from 8% to 6% in a week, and the undecided from 3% to 2%. As the protest vote finds a home, it is breaking — for now — slightly more toward the challenger than toward the president. With free television time and the debate calendar now dominating the campaign, small shifts compound quickly.
Inside the Workers’ Party, the polls have triggered open self-criticism. PT president Edinho Silva acknowledged on Thursday that the STF crisis is weighing on Lula’s numbers, according to Poder360, and called a leadership meeting to adjust the campaign. Lula himself publicly shrugged off the surveys — “polls don’t shake me,” he said, “pesquisa não me abala” — while Flávio Bolsonaro’s camp treats the AtlasIntel flip as proof of momentum.
The first round is on October 4; a runoff, if no candidate wins a majority of valid votes, on October 25. Between now and then, watch three things: whether Cury’s 10% begins to migrate, whether the institutional crisis around the Banco Master investigation moves undecided voters, and whether the next polling rounds confirm a trend or mark the high-water mark of the challenger’s September surge.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do the latest Brazil polls show?
The PoderData/Aya survey published on September 10, 2026 shows Flávio Bolsonaro at 47% and Lula at 45% in a runoff simulation. The AtlasIntel/Bloomberg survey gave Flávio his first numerical lead in that series, 46.4% to 46.2%. In the first round, PoderData has Lula at 38%, Flávio at 36% and Augusto Cury at 10%.
Is Flávio Bolsonaro really ahead of Lula?
Numerically, yes — for the second consecutive PoderData round, and for the first time also in the AtlasIntel/Bloomberg series. But every gap is inside the margin of error, and Quaest still shows a dead heat. The race is effectively a coin flip with momentum on Flávio’s side.
When is Brazil’s 2026 presidential election?
The first round takes place on October 4, 2026. If no candidate wins a majority of valid votes, the top two meet in a runoff on October 25, 2026 — currently the most likely scenario according to every major pollster.
Sources
PoderData/Aya via CNN Brasil · Poder360 · Jovem Pan · SBT (runoff, first round and approval, September 10, 2026) · Reuters · Exame (AtlasIntel/Bloomberg, September 10, 2026) · CNN Brasil (rejection rates) · Exame (Palver) · Correio Braziliense (Meio/Ideia) · Poder360 (Paulinho da Força endorsement, September 7, 2026; PT reaction, September 10, 2026) · Quaest via Poder360 (regional polls, August 25, 2026)
Connected Coverage
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