Who Is Michelle Bolsonaro? Brazil’s Senator-Elect
Updated 16 October 2026
Key Facts · In short · 16 October 2026
- —Who she is Michelle Bolsonaro, 44, is a conservative politician, Brazil’s first lady from 2019 to 2022 and the wife of former president Jair Bolsonaro.
- —Role today She is senator-elect for the Federal District, which covers Brasília, after winning 29.05% of valid votes on 4 October 2026.
- —Party She belongs to the Liberal Party (PL) and led its women’s wing, PL Mulher, from March 2023 until June 2026.
- —Known for She is known for her disability-rights cause, her evangelical faith and her appeal to women and evangelical voters.
- —Latest In October she began planning trips to four or five state capitals for her stepson Flávio Bolsonaro’s runoff against President Lula on 25 October.
- —Prediction markets Polymarket puts Flávio Bolsonaro’s chance of winning at 77% and Kalshi at 79% (Lula: 23% and 21%), as of 20 October, 4:20 am ET; prices are bets, not polls.
Michelle Bolsonaro, 44, is a Brazilian conservative politician, the wife of former president Jair Bolsonaro and Brazil’s first lady from 2019 to 2022. She won a Senate seat for the Federal District on 4 October 2026 and is now campaigning for her stepson, Flávio Bolsonaro, in the presidential runoff on Sunday, 25 October.
This profile answers what readers ask most about her: who she is, whether she is a candidate, her age, her family and her faith. It is updated as the campaign develops, and our Brazil runoff guide covers the full race.
Who Is Michelle Bolsonaro? Age, Family and Faith
Her full name is Michelle de Paula Firmo Reinaldo Bolsonaro, and some outlets and searches misspell it “Michele”. She is a Brazilian conservative and an evangelical Christian, and she is the third wife of Jair Bolsonaro.
Michelle de Paula Firmo Reinaldo Bolsonaro was born on 22 March 1982 in Ceilândia, a working-class satellite city of Brasília. She is 44, and her father, Vicente de Paulo Reinaldo, is a retired bus driver from Crateús in the north-eastern state of Ceará.
She was working in the Chamber of Deputies when she met Jair Bolsonaro, then a congressman from Rio de Janeiro. They married in a civil ceremony in 2007, their daughter Laura was born in 2010, and pastor Silas Malafaia led their church wedding in 2013.
She also has an older daughter, Letícia, from an earlier relationship. Through her marriage she is the stepmother of Jair Bolsonaro’s four sons: Flávio, Carlos and Eduardo from his first marriage, to Rogéria Nantes Braga, and Jair Renan from his second, to Ana Cristina Valle.
Is She Flávio Bolsonaro’s Mother?
No, Michelle Bolsonaro is Flávio’s stepmother, and she is about 11 months younger than him. He was born on 30 April 1981 to Rogéria Nantes Braga, Jair Bolsonaro’s first wife and a former Rio de Janeiro city councillor.
Their relationship broke into the open over Ceará, where she backed her ally Priscila Costa for the Senate while Flávio and the state party leader, André Fernandes, built a slate allied with Ciro Gomes, a former presidential candidate who had long opposed Jair Bolsonaro. Priscila Costa later left the Senate race, and on 4 October Ciro lost the governor’s race to Elmano de Freitas of the Workers’ Party (PT).
In June 2026 she posted a video saying her stepson had humiliated and disrespected her, and on 30 June she stepped down as head of PL Mulher, the party’s women’s wing. Party chairman Valdemar Costa Neto said in July that he would not name a successor and was considering ending the national post.
Flávio apologised publicly in late June and again on 23 July, and she accepted. In August she told a campaign event in Brasília that the right also had to elect him president.
Her Faith
Michelle Bolsonaro is an evangelical Christian, and faith runs through her speeches and her politics. She attended Silas Malafaia’s Assembleia de Deus Vitória em Cristo church and around 2016 became a member of the Igreja Batista Atitude, a Baptist church based in Rio de Janeiro’s Barra da Tijuca district.
About 27% of Brazilians aged 10 and over called themselves evangelical in the 2022 census, according to the statistics agency IBGE. The PL is counting on her to reach that electorate, especially women, according to reports on its runoff plans.
Career and Positions
Her career has three phases: first lady and disability-rights advocate from 2019 to 2022, head of the PL’s women’s wing from 2023 to 2026, and Senate winner in 2026. The sections below cover each.
First Lady From 2019 to 2022
She became first lady on 1 January 2019, when Jair Bolsonaro took office, and gave a speech in Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) at the inauguration. Disability rights became her signature cause, and she chaired Pátria Voluntária, a government programme that channelled private donations and volunteer work into social projects.
In the 2022 campaign she became one of her husband’s main speakers to women and evangelical voters. After Lula won that election, she took over PL Mulher in March 2023 and led it until June 2026.
Is Michelle Bolsonaro a Candidate? Her Senate Win
She was a candidate in 2026, and she won. Michelle Bolsonaro ran for one of the Federal District’s two Senate seats and finished first on 4 October with 938,496 votes, or 29.05% of valid votes, according to the Superior Electoral Court (TSE).
Bia Kicis, a PL federal deputy, took the second seat with 27.44%, ahead of Senator Leila Barros of the centre-left Democratic Labour Party (PDT) with 21.25% and Erika Kokay of the Workers’ Party (PT) with 18.91%. It was the first election Michelle Bolsonaro ever contested, and she is not on the ballot on 25 October.
She filed her candidacy on 15 August, the last day allowed, with her brother Diego Torres as an alternate, a person who takes the seat if the senator leaves it. She declared assets of about R$4.5 million (about US$900,000 at R$5.01 per dollar), almost all of it financial investments plus a Volkswagen Beetle, according to her TSE filing as reported by O Tempo and Gazeta do Povo.
She takes office on 1 February 2027 for the standard eight-year Senate term, which runs to 2035. Both PL senators-elect backed Governor Celina Leão of the conservative Progressistas party (PP) in the first round, and Leão now faces Leandro Grass of the PT in the Federal District’s governor runoff on 25 October after leading 49.93% to 34.47%.
Key Controversies and Rulings
Neither episode below resulted in charges against her. Both date from 2020.
In August 2020 the magazine Crusoé reported bank records showing that Fabrício Queiroz, a former aide to Flávio at the centre of an inquiry into salary kickbacks in his old state-assembly office, and Queiroz’s wife had deposited R$89,000 (about US$17,800 at today’s rate) into her account in 27 payments between 2011 and 2016. Jair Bolsonaro said the money repaid a loan, the then prosecutor-general Augusto Aras opposed an inquiry and the Supreme Court shelved the request, and she has never been charged.
In February 2020 the government began work to halve the Library of the Presidency in the Planalto Palace, home to about 42,000 items including 3,000 presidential speeches, to make room for advisers of her Pátria Voluntária programme, and the Federal Council of Librarianship asked the Comptroller General’s Office (CGU), the federal audit body, to protect the collection. Jair Bolsonaro told reporters that no book would be thrown out and made a banana gesture at the press, and after the backlash she gave up the space and asked for another room in the palace, the news site Congresso em Foco reported that month.
What Michelle Bolsonaro Said and Did Recently
Since the first round, Michelle Bolsonaro has moved from her own race into Flávio Bolsonaro’s runoff campaign against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the left-wing Workers’ Party (PT). On 7 October she met the women elected for the Liberal Party (PL), Jair Bolsonaro’s conservative party, and set out a plan to campaign in four or five state capitals, Brazilian media reported.
Salvador and João Pessoa in the Northeast, Lula’s strongest region, are among the cities under study, along with Macapá, and Senator Damares Alves of the conservative Republicanos party, a former human-rights minister under Jair Bolsonaro, is expected to join some trips. Amazonas, where the PL’s Maria do Carmo is in the governor runoff, is expected to be her first runoff trip, according to Brazilian media.
The PL sees her role as a way to reduce resistance to Flávio among women and to reach Christian voters, Brazilian media reported on 13 October. Party members said she cannot campaign full-time but will help where she can.
Her time is limited, because she wants trips that let her return to Brasília the same day. There she cares for her husband, whom the Supreme Court sentenced in 2025 to 27 years and three months for plotting to overturn the 2022 election, which he denies, and who has been under house arrest on health grounds since March 2026.
The change is visible because in the first round she focused on her own race, recording videos for Flávio but not joining his street events, according to Brazilian media. The decision to campaign more actively followed a request from Jair Bolsonaro himself, those reports said.
Why Michelle Bolsonaro Matters for Brazil
She is the PL’s main bridge to women and evangelical voters, the groups where the party hopes she can reduce resistance to Flávio Bolsonaro’s candidacy. About 27% of Brazilians aged 10 and over called themselves evangelical in the 2022 census, according to the statistics agency IBGE.
Her Senate seat gives the Bolsonaro family a voice in the chamber until 2035, because she takes office on 1 February 2027 for an eight-year term. She is also the person closest to Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving his sentence under house arrest in Brasília.
What Prediction Markets Say
Prediction markets, where traders buy contracts that pay US$1 if an outcome happens, price the runoff that her stepson is contesting. The card below shows the latest prices for Flávio Bolsonaro and Lula on Polymarket and on Kalshi, which the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) regulates in the United States.
Prediction markets · who wins the runoff
Implied chance of winning Brazil’s presidency on 25 October, from traders’ prices.
Polymarket
Flávio Bolsonaro 77% · Lula 22.5% (US$189 million traded)
Kalshi (regulated in the US by the CFTC)
Flávio Bolsonaro 79% · Lula 21%
As of 20 October, 4:20 am ET (09:20 Lisbon), updated every 20 minutes. Prices are bets, not polls, and can move fast.
Why we show this: prediction markets turn real-money bets into a live probability that moves within minutes of the news, which is why investors, campaigns and newsrooms in the United States now follow them closely. We show them next to polls and official results, never instead of them.
What to Watch
Watch whether she appears at Flávio’s rallies in the Northeast and in Brasília before the campaign ends, and whether new polls show his standing among women improving. Watch also the Federal District governor runoff on 25 October, where her ally Celina Leão faces Leandro Grass.
For the full race, read our runoff guide and follow every survey in our poll tracker. Our odds page tracks Polymarket and Kalshi, and our profiles explain who Flávio Bolsonaro is and who Lula is.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Michelle Bolsonaro?
Michelle Bolsonaro, sometimes misspelled Michele Bolsonaro, is a Brazilian conservative politician and the wife of former president Jair Bolsonaro, and she was first lady from 2019 to 2022. On 4 October 2026 she was elected senator for the Federal District, which covers Brasília.
Is Michelle Bolsonaro a candidate in 2026?
She ran for the Senate in the Federal District and won on 4 October with 29.05% of valid votes, the most of any candidate. She is not on the ballot in the presidential runoff on 25 October, where she campaigns for her stepson Flávio Bolsonaro.
How old is Michelle Bolsonaro?
Michelle Bolsonaro is 44. She was born on 22 March 1982 in Ceilândia, a satellite city of Brasília.
Is Michelle Bolsonaro Flávio Bolsonaro’s mother?
No, she is his stepmother, and she is about 11 months younger than him. Flávio’s mother is Rogéria Nantes Braga, Jair Bolsonaro’s first wife.
Is Michelle Bolsonaro still married to Jair Bolsonaro?
Yes, and she cares for him in Brasília, where he is serving a sentence of 27 years and three months for the 2022 coup plot, which he denies, under house arrest on health grounds. That is why she plans campaign trips that let her return the same day.
What religion is Michelle Bolsonaro?
She is an evangelical Christian and a member of the Igreja Batista Atitude, a Baptist church. Her church wedding to Jair Bolsonaro in 2013 was led by pastor Silas Malafaia.
Sources: Superior Electoral Court (TSE) results for the Federal District Senate and governor races, 4 October 2026; TSE candidate filing as reported by O Tempo and Gazeta do Povo (August 2026); O Popular and other Brazilian media (7 to 13 October 2026); Correio da Manhã and Brasil de Fato (2026); Terra/Estadão (18 August 2026); Poder360, O Povo, InfoMoney and Band (June and July 2026); Congresso em Foco (February 2020 and March 2023); Crusoé as reported by O Povo (August 2020); A Gazeta on the Supreme Court decision; IBGE 2022 census; Central Bank of Brazil PTAX rate, 13 October 2026.
Brazil Runoff 2026: Our Coverage
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error · Editorial responsibility: Matthias Camenzind, Editor-in-Chief