Brazil’s Court Crisis Has Not Moved the Election: Datafolha Holds the Runoff at 46-44
BRAZIL · ELECTION 2026
Key Facts
- —The first round Lula takes 39% and Flávio Bolsonaro 35% in the prompted scenario, a four-point gap.
- —The runoff Lula 46, Flávio 44. Identical to the previous Datafolha, published on 3 September.
- —The movement Lula gained one point and Flávio two. The gap narrowed from five points to four.
- —The catch Fieldwork covered 8 to 10 September, the worst days of the court crisis. Nothing moved.
- —The method 2,002 interviews, margin of error two points, registered with the electoral court as BR-01833/2026.
- —The rivals Two other pollsters put Flávio ahead in the same week. Every gap sits inside the error.
Fieldwork ran from 8 to 10 September, the days the court’s internal fight became public. Lula still leads a runoff by two points, exactly as he did a week earlier.
A new Datafolha poll landed on Friday evening at the end of Brazil’s worst institutional week in years. It found that nothing had changed.
President Lula takes 39% in the first round. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro takes 35%.
In a head-to-head runoff the numbers are 46 and 44. They are the same two numbers Datafolha published on 3 September.
The Timing Is the Story
Fieldwork ran from 8 to 10 September. Those were the days Brazil’s Supreme Court turned on itself in public.
On 9 September the court’s president suspended two colleagues’ contradictory orders over who commands the federal police. He then took the long-running fake-news inquiry away from Justice Alexandre de Moraes and assumed it himself.
On 10 September Justice André Mendonça ordered the Banco Master files unsealed. Roughly 4,000 documents were published the next day.
Moraes then said 180 were missing, and Mendonça denied withholding anything. Through all of it the runoff number held at 46 to 44.
What Actually Moved
The first round tightened slightly. Lula rose from 38% to 39% and Flávio Bolsonaro from 33% to 35%.
Those are the scenarios without Pablo Marçal, which is the like-for-like comparison. The earlier poll also ran a version including him.
The gap narrowed from five points to four. Both movements sit inside or at the edge of the margin of error.
The squeeze came from the middle. Augusto Cury of Avante fell from 8% to 6%.
Ronaldo Caiado holds 4% and Renan Santos 3%. Romeu Zema takes 2%, and six further names share what is left.
Blank, null and none-of-these together account for 6%. Another 4% are undecided.
Marçal Is Out
The question of which scenario counts was settled the same evening. Brazil’s electoral court rejected Pablo Marçal’s candidacy by seven votes to nothing.
The ruling leaves him ineligible until 2032 over a conviction arising from the 2024 municipal elections. He had already been barred from campaigning and from debates.
That is why the new Datafolha runs no Marçal scenario at all. The field is now fixed for the first round.
The Unprompted Answer
Datafolha also asks the question without reading out a list. That version strips away recognition and measures who voters can name unaided.
There Lula takes 33% and Flávio Bolsonaro 25%. Cury drops to 3% and Renan Santos to 2%.
Jair Bolsonaro still draws 2% from voters naming a candidate unprompted. He is ineligible to stand until 2030.
The striking figure is the 23% who cannot name anyone. That gap is the space campaigns will fight over in the final weeks.
How It Was Done
Datafolha interviewed 2,002 people aged 16 and over. The margin of error is two percentage points either way at 95% confidence.
The poll is registered with Brazil’s electoral court as BR-01833/2026. Registration is compulsory at least five days before publication.
Pollsters must file the sponsor, the cost, the sample composition, the question wording and the statistician responsible. It was commissioned jointly by the Folha group and Globo.
Other Pollsters Disagree
AtlasIntel published its own runoff reading on 10 September. It put Flávio Bolsonaro on 46.4% and Lula on 46.2%.
PoderData, with fieldwork from 6 to 9 September, put the runoff at 47 to 45 for Flávio Bolsonaro. Gerp, a day earlier again, had him seven points clear.
So three of the four most recent polls put the challenger in front. Datafolha is the one that does not.
Different houses use different methods. PoderData polls by telephone, AtlasIntel recruits digitally, and Datafolha still interviews face to face.
The honest reading is that the race is level. Anyone claiming a settled leader from these numbers is reading noise.
Why Foreign Readers Should Care
Brazil is the largest economy in Latin America and its currency moves on political risk. A level race keeps that risk permanently priced in.
The court crisis matters here for a direct reason. Flávio Bolsonaro is himself under investigation over the bank at the centre of it.
Mendonça opened that inquiry in July 2026 at police request, into alleged corruption and money laundering. It concerns an investment the senator is said to have sought from the bank’s owner.
That makes every judicial step readable as an electoral one. It is also why a flat runoff number is more interesting than a swing would have been.
More: Brazil news in English, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is Brazil’s 2026 presidential election?
The first round is on 4 October 2026 and the runoff on 25 October. A candidate wins outright by taking an absolute majority of valid votes, which excludes blank and null ballots.
Who is Flávio Bolsonaro?
He is a Brazilian senator for Rio de Janeiro and the eldest son of former president Jair Bolsonaro. He is the main challenger to Lula in current polling.
Is voting compulsory in Brazil?
It is compulsory for citizens aged 18 to 70. It is optional at 16 and 17, for those over 70 and for the illiterate.
Why do two polls give different leaders?
Because the gaps are smaller than the surveys’ margins of error. When a race is level, different samples and methods can put either candidate marginally ahead.
Sources: Datafolha via Folha de S.Paulo, Gazeta do Povo, Brasil de Fato, Metrópoles, CNN Brasil, Poder360, Exame, Agência Brasil, Conjur, Migalhas, TSE.
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error
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