Brazil Election 2026: Lula vs Flávio Runoff on 25 October

BRAZIL ELECTIONS 2026 · RUNOFF GUIDE

Updated 109 times · Latest: 27 October 2026

Results: With every polling section counted, the electoral court (TSE) shows Lula with 64,256,232 votes (51.79% of valid votes) and Flávio with 59,826,041 (48.21%), a gap of 4,430,191 votes. Live figures are on our Brazil election results page.

President Lula, 80, won the Brazil election 2026 runoff on Sunday, 25 October, beating conservative senator Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, by 51.79% to 48.21% of valid votes. Flávio had won the first round, 47.03% to 45.16%.

Lula has won a fourth term with a record 64.26 million votes, but Flávio refuses to concede and says he will seek annulment, although his own Liberal Party has recognised the result. US President Trump has called the vote “rigged” without evidence. A Supreme Court order now bars him from leaving Brazil.

This guide is our single page on the deciding round of the Brazil election 2026: how the vote works, the polls, the candidates’ plans, the campaign so far, the debates and what the result means for readers in the United States. We keep updating it through the transition, and the official figures are on our Brazil election results page.

Every runoff poll is also free to download as CSV or JSON in our Brazil election data room. The data room also offers two live cards, the poll average and the results, that other sites can embed.

Latest Developments

Lula won the runoff on 25 October with 51.79% of valid votes against Flávio Bolsonaro’s 48.21%, a margin of 4,430,191 votes, according to the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), the body that runs and certifies the vote. Lula is set to take office on 5 January 2027 (what now for Brazil).

On Monday, 26 October, US President Donald Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, a US air base in Maryland, that Brazil’s runoff “looked like another rigged election.” He offered no evidence and criticised the order by Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin that extended voting by two hours (our report).

Brazil’s Vice President Geraldo Alckmin called Trump’s claim “totally mistaken” (in Portuguese, “totalmente equivocada”) and said Brazil’s electronic voting machines are a model of legal security. Flávio Bolsonaro, the defeated senator, has not conceded, but his Liberal Party (PL) recognised Lula’s win on 26 October.

On the night of 25 October, Flávio Bolsonaro said he cannot recognise the result and will ask courts to annul the election, blaming Supreme Court justice Cristiano Zanin’s decision to extend voting by two hours. The full statement is in our report.

Brazil’s Liberal Party (PL), the party of Flávio Bolsonaro, recognised Lula’s runoff win on Monday, 26 October, in a note signed by its president, Valdemar Costa Neto. The note accepts the result proclaimed by the electoral court but asks for clarification of public spending on social benefits on the eve of the vote (our report).

Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Monday, 26 October, barred Senator Flávio Bolsonaro from leaving Brazil and ordered him to hand his passports to the Federal Police, Brazil’s national investigative police. The senator, who says he will comply, linked the order to a statement by his brother Eduardo Bolsonaro; the order itself has not been published, so its details come from the senator’s account (our report).

About 34,000 votes were registered between 17:00 and 19:00 Brasília time on 25 October, after Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin extended voting, according to electoral court data. That is less than 1% of Lula’s margin of 4,430,191 votes, so removing every one of them would still leave Lula about 4.40 million votes ahead (our count).

Lula’s 64,256,232 votes are the most ever cast for a Brazilian presidential candidate, about 3.9 million more than his own 2022 record of 60,345,999. The inauguration date is set out in what happens next, and the record is covered in our vote-record report.

In his victory speech on the night of 25 October, Lula said social media platforms must be regulated and criticised big tech companies over tax avoidance and election interference (our report).

Brazil’s markets were hit hard on Monday, 26 October, the first trading day after Lula’s win. The Ibovespa, Brazil’s main stock index, closed down 13.88% at 176,608 points, its biggest daily fall since March 2020, from Friday’s close of 205,082.56 points. The dollar ended at about R$5.40, up more than 8% on the day, and B3, the São Paulo stock exchange, triggered a circuit breaker (an automatic trading pause) for the first time since March 2020 (our market report).

Retail chains were among the hardest hit: Magazine Luiza, a big electronics and household-goods retailer, lost more than half of its value, and C&A Brasil, a clothing chain, dropped about 47%. Investors worry about government spending and debt under another Lula term (why retail stocks plunged).

Brazil’s real, the national currency, recovered some ground on Tuesday, 27 October, as the dollar closed at R$5.3488, down 1.07% from Monday’s close of about R$5.41. Even so, the dollar still buys about 7% more reais than it did before the runoff, when it traded just below R$5 (our report).

Citigroup, the US bank, and BCA Research, a research firm, cut their stance on Brazilian assets after Lula’s win. Citi said the market had been too optimistic about Lula, while BCA said his victory ends hope of an orthodox, fiscally disciplined government.

Edinho Silva, national president of Lula’s Workers’ Party, said on Monday, 26 October, that Lula will choose his finance minister by the end of 2026 and keep the government’s commitment to a budget surplus before debt interest. He praised Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and Piauí Governor Rafael Fonteles but confirmed no name (our report).

President Lula won the presidency, but the right is strong in Congress. The Liberal Party of his rival, senator Flávio Bolsonaro, won 121 of the 513 seats in the lower house, the largest bench, and Lula’s Workers’ Party won 70, so Lula will need deals with centre-right parties to pass laws (Lula faces a hostile Congress).

A 25% US tariff on many Brazilian goods has applied since 22 July under Section 301 (a US trade law aimed at unfair foreign practices). Beef, coffee and orange juice are exempt, according to the US Trade Representative (USTR), the White House trade office (tariff background).

Flávio Bolsonaro says he will ask courts to annul a vote that Lula won by 4,430,191 votes, and our explainer sets out how courts treat such requests (can Bolsonaro overturn the election?).

What Happens in the Brazil Election 2026 Runoff on 25 October

Brazil votes on Sunday, 25 October, to choose its president for the four years from 5 January 2027. The runoff is needed because nobody won more than half of the valid votes on 4 October, when Flávio Bolsonaro took 47.03% (56,104,503 votes) and Lula 45.16% (53,879,538), a gap of 2,224,965 votes, according to the electoral court (TSE).

With only two names on the ballot, the candidate with more valid votes wins. Blank and spoiled ballots do not count, and the ten other first-round candidates, led by the writer Augusto Cury of the small Avante party with 2.89%, are out.

Voting Hours in US Time

Polling stations open at 8 a.m. and close at 5 p.m. Brasília time, which is 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. US Eastern, 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Central and 4 a.m. to 1 p.m. Pacific. The same clock applies nationwide, so states on Amazon time vote from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. local time and Acre from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m., while in Lisbon and London, whose clocks go back that morning, polls were due to close at 8 p.m. A Supreme Court order on 25 October then extended voting nationwide by two hours, to 7 p.m. Brasília time (6 p.m. ET).

Who Votes

More than 158 million Brazilians are registered, and voting is compulsory for literate citizens aged 18 to 70. It is optional for 16- and 17-year-olds, people over 70 and those who cannot read, and anyone who misses a round without a valid excuse pays a small fine, usually R$3.51 (about US$0.70) (our guide to the rules).

Foreigners cannot vote, even as permanent residents, with a narrow exception for Portuguese citizens granted equal political rights. Naturalised Brazilians vote on the same terms as citizens born in Brazil, and our guide for foreign visitors covers what changes on the day, including state alcohol restrictions.

Brazilians Abroad

Citizens registered abroad vote only for president, at embassies, consulates and other Brazilian offices, during local hours that generally run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The TSE counts 918,876 such voters in 134 countries, including 265,437 in the United States, the largest group, ahead of Portugal and Japan (our report on the vote abroad).

How the Count Works

Brazil has voted entirely on electronic machines since 2000, and each machine prints a tally sheet with a QR code when polls close. The TSE was due to start publishing the national count at 5 p.m. Brasília time (4 p.m. ET, 20:00 UTC) on its Resultados portal and app, but on 25 October it paused the count while voting was extended by two hours, and it resumed after the polls closed at 7 p.m. Brasília time. In the 2022 runoff the winner was clear about three hours after polls closed.

Partial counts are not forecasts, because states report at different speeds and early numbers can favour one side. Our guide to the results start time explains where to follow the count, and our results page will carry the official figures live.

Governor Runoffs

Voters in five states and the Federal District also choose a governor on 25 October. Rio de Janeiro is not among them, because the TSE voided 274,411 votes for Anthony Garotinho on 8 October and Rio’s electoral court confirmed on 10 October that Douglas Ruas of the PL had won outright with 50.88% (our report). The PSD, the party of Eduardo Paes, who finished second with 42.76%, has asked the Supreme Federal Court (STF) to order a runoff anyway, and on 19 October Justice Cristiano Zanin gave the TSE five days to explain its ruling without deciding whether to suspend it, so for now there is no Rio runoff on 25 October (our report).

The PP, União Brasil, Republicanos and PSDB below are centre-right parties, the PSD and MDB are centrist, the PL is conservative and the PT is left-wing. These are the six races:

• Acre: Governor Mailza Assis (PP) against Senator Alan Rick (Republicanos).
• Amazonas: Senator Omar Aziz (PSD), a Lula ally, against Professora Maria do Carmo (PL), who backs Flávio.
• Espírito Santo: Lorenzo Pazolini (Republicanos), backed by Flávio, against Governor Ricardo Ferraço (MDB).
• Rio Grande do Norte: Allyson Bezerra (União Brasil) against Cadu de Lula (PT), the tightest of the six in the first round.
• Tocantins: Senator Professora Dorinha (União Brasil) against Vicentinho Júnior (PSDB).
• Federal District: Governor Celina Leão (PP) against Leandro Grass (PT).

Governors take office on 6 January 2027, and the Congress elected on 4 October takes office on 1 February. Our report on the six races has the latest polls, and our governor runoff report has the first-round numbers for each state.

Key Dates

• Wednesday, 14 October: Quaest releases its first runoff poll, Flávio 46% and Lula 44%; first Senate vote on ending the six-day work week was scheduled.
• Thursday, 15 October: Datafolha runoff poll due; Lula’s TV Globo interview; the “Exército do Lula” WhatsApp channel may post again from 10:33 a.m. Brasília time.
• Friday, 16 October: Flávio’s TV Globo interview; PoderData, Futura and CNT/MDA publish new runoff polls.
• Sunday, 18 October: Band debate at 8 p.m. Brasília time (7 p.m. ET).
• Thursday, 22 October: last day for paid campaign posts online.
• Friday, 23 October: TV Globo debate and last day of free campaign airtime on radio and TV.
• Sunday, 25 October: voting from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Brasília time (7 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET), extended by a Supreme Court order to 7 p.m. Brasília time (6 p.m. ET), with the national count resuming after the polls closed.
• Monday, 26 October: first market reaction in São Paulo and New York.
• Wednesday, 4 November: central bank interest-rate decision.
• Tuesday, 5 January 2027: the winner is sworn in for a four-year term, a date set by a 2021 constitutional amendment that moved the inauguration from 1 January.

Latest Polls

Flávio leads in forty of the forty-six runoff polls in our tracker, two (PoderData/Aya on 16 October and Datafolha on 22 October) were 50% ties and four (all three from Vox Brasil, plus Data Ranking on 20 October) have Lula ahead, but most of the leads are small. Our simple average of the latest poll from each of the twenty-one pollsters, released from 8 to 24 October, gives Flávio about 51% of valid votes and Lula about 49%.

Our report on the narrowing in the BTG/Nexus and AtlasIntel polls compares each survey with the same pollster’s previous wave.

Valid votes leave out blank and spoiled ballots and undecided voters, which is how the TSE declares a winner. Polls missed the first round, when Datafolha’s final survey had Lula ahead by 45% to 42% and the count showed Flávio ahead by 47.03% to 45.16%, so read every figure as a snapshot.

• CNT/MDA (released 24 October; 2,032 face-to-face interviews from 21 to 23 October; 2.2 points; BR-02136/2026): Flávio 50.7%, Lula 49.3% of valid votes, up from 50.5% to 49.5% on 16 October, a lead inside the margin of error (our report).
• Instituto França (released 24 October; 1,537 interviews from 21 to 23 October; 2.5 points; BR-04863/2026): Flávio 51.4%, Lula 48.6% of valid votes, and 45.6% to 43.1% of all answers, up from 50.8% to 49.2% on 20 October (our report).
• Veritá (released 23 October; 15,554 interviews from 18 to 22 October; 1 point; BR-06070/2026): Flávio 51.3%, Lula 48.7% of valid votes, and 50.2% to 47.5% of all answers, up from 50.7% to 49.3% on 21 October (our report).
• Ipespe/Abrapel (released 23 October; 1,500 interviews from 20 to 22 October; 2.6 points; BR-04350/2026): Flávio 50.5%, Lula 49.5% of valid votes, a 1-point lead inside the margin of error, down from 51.2% to 48.8% in its wave of 13 to 15 October (our report).
• DataTrends (released 23 October; 2,000 interviews from 19 to 21 October; 2.19 points; BR-03365/2026): Flávio 51.9%, Lula 48.1% of valid votes, and 50% to 46% of all answers, up from 51.5% to 48.5% in its wave of 15 to 17 October (our report).
• Real Time Big Data (released 23 October; 2,000 telephone and online interviews from 19 to 22 October; 2 points; BR-09670/2026): Flávio 52%, Lula 48% of valid votes, the same as its 20 October poll, and 49% to 45% of all answers (our report).
• Vox Brasil (latest wave; 2,100 face-to-face interviews from 20 to 22 October; 2.15 points): Lula 50.6%, Flávio 49.4% of valid votes, a 1.2-point gap inside the margin of error, against Lula 51% to 49% in its wave of 15 to 17 October (our report).
• Datafolha (released 22 October; 2,154 interviews from 20 to 22 October; 2 points; BR-09709/2026): Flávio 50%, Lula 50% of valid votes, and 47% to 46% of all answers, a statistical tie, down from 51% to 49% on 15 October (our report). Among all voters, 46% say they would never vote for Flávio and 45% for Lula (rejection rates), and 49% approve of Lula’s government against 48% who disapprove (approval rating).
• Indexa/Broadcast (released 22 October; 2,000 telephone interviews on 20 and 21 October; 2.2 points; BR-02348/2026): Flávio 50.6%, Lula 49.4% of valid votes, and 45.2% to 44.1% of all answers, a technical tie (our report).
• PoderData/Aya (released 22 October; 4,000 interviews by telephone from 19 to 21 October; 1.6 points): Flávio 51%, Lula 49% of valid votes, down from 52% to 48% on 19 October, so his lead narrowed from 4 points to 2 (our report).
• Gerp (released 21 October; 2,400 telephone interviews from 19 to 21 October; 2 points; TSE BR-03835/2026): Flávio 53%, Lula 47% of valid votes, and 50% to 45% of all answers, up from 52% to 48% in its 16 October poll (our report).
• Veritá (earlier wave, released 21 October; 15,554 interviews from 15 to 19 October; 1 point; BR-06396/2026): Flávio 50.7%, Lula 49.3% of valid votes, down from 51.1% to 48.9% on 17 October, so his lead narrowed from 2.2 points to 1.4 (our report).
• Futura/100% Cidades (released 21 October; 2,000 interviews on 19 and 20 October; 2.2 points; BR-06614/2026): Flávio 51.1%, Lula 48.9% of valid votes, up from 50.4% to 49.6% on 19 October, so his lead grew from 0.8 points to 2.2, a technical tie (our report).
• Palver (released 21 October; online survey from 18 to 20 October; 2.4 points; BR-04612/2026): Flávio 50%, Lula 48% of all answers, which is about 51% to 49% of valid votes by our calculation (our report).
• Quaest/Globo (released 21 October; 2,154 interviews from 17 to 20 October; 2 points; BR-08535/2026): Flávio 45%, Lula 44% of all answers, or 50.6% to 49.4% of valid votes by our calculation, so his lead over Quaest’s 14 October wave narrowed from about 2 points to about 1; the interviews included the day of the Band debate (our report).
• Meio/Ideia (released 21 October; 1,500 interviews from 15 to 19 October; 2.5 points; BR-08251/2026): Flávio 51.1%, Lula 48.9% of valid votes, and 48% to 46% of all answers, a technical tie within the margin of error (our report).
• Instituto França (released 20 October; 3,000 interviews from 16 to 20 October; 1.8 points; BR-07896/2026): Flávio 50.8%, Lula 49.2% of valid votes, and 40.95% to 39.65% of all answers (our report).
• Data Ranking (released 20 October; 2,100 in-person interviews from 14 to 16 October; 2.15 points): Lula 50.4%, Flávio 49.6% of valid votes, and 45.4% to 44.6% of all answers, a statistical tie in which Lula is numerically ahead (our report).
• Real Time Big Data (released 20 October; 2,000 telephone and online-message interviews from 15 to 19 October; 2 points; BR-02952/2026): Flávio 52%, Lula 48% of valid votes, and 48% to 45% of all answers (our report).
• Alfa Inteligência (released 20 October; 2,700 in-person interviews from 15 to 19 October; 1.9 points; BR-00820/2026): Flávio 51.5%, Lula 48.5% of valid votes, and 48.8% to 45.9% of all answers, with 46% of voters rejecting Lula and 45% rejecting Flávio (our report).
• PoderData/Aya (released 19 October; telephone interviews on 16, 17 and 18 October): Flávio 52%, Lula 48% of valid votes, up from a 50% tie on 16 October (our report).
• DataTrends (released 19 October; 2,000 automated telephone interviews in all 27 states from 15 to 17 October; 2.19 points): Flávio 51.5%, Lula 48.5% of valid votes, and 49% to 46% of all answers, down from 53.1% to 46.9% on 11 October, so his lead narrowed from 6.2 points to 3 (our report).
• Futura/100% Cidades (released 19 October; 2,000 interviews on 16 and 17 October; 2.2 points): Flávio 50.4%, Lula 49.6% of valid votes, and 48.3% to 47.5% of all answers, down from 50.8% to 49.2% on 16 October, so his lead narrowed from 1.6 points to 0.8, a technical tie (our report).
• 19 October, Bolsa Família: the government begins paying the raised Bolsa Família welfare benefit, whose minimum is now R$691 (about US$137), up from R$600 (about US$119). Payments for families with social identification numbers ending in 3 to 0 are brought together on Wednesday, 21 October, so every family is paid four days before the runoff; the Social Development Ministry cites El Niño risks, and we have not seen a court ruling on the timing (our report).
• BTG Pactual/Nexus (released 19 October; 2,002 interviews on 16, 17 and 18 October; 2 points; BR-04499/2026): Flávio 50.3%, Lula 49.7% of valid votes, down from 52% to 48% on 13 October, so his lead narrowed from 4 points to 0.6 (our report). Interviews ended on the day of the Band debate, so the poll cannot show its effect.
• Vox Brasil (released 18 October; 2,100 face-to-face interviews from 15 to 17 October; 2.15 points; BR-04332/2026): Lula 51%, Flávio 49% of valid votes; among all answers Lula 46.4%, Flávio 44.6%.
• Ipespe/Abrapel (released 17 October; 1,500 interviews nationwide from 13 to 15 October; 2.6 points; BR-00223/2026): Flávio 51.2%, Lula 48.8% of valid votes, down from 52.7% to 47.3% on 10 October, so his lead narrowed from 5.4 to 2.4 points (our report).
• Veritá (released 17 October; 15,554 interviews from 12 to 16 October; 1 point; BR-01107/2026): Flávio 51.1%, Lula 48.9% of valid votes (our report).
• PoderData/Aya (released 16 October; 3,000 telephone interviews on 13, 14 and 15 October; margin of error 1.8 points; TSE BR-04258/2026): Flávio 50%, Lula 50%, a tie (our report).
• Futura/100% Cidades (16 October; 2,000 telephone interviews on 14 and 15 October; 2.2 points; BR-03764/2026): Flávio 50.8%, Lula 49.2% (our report).
• CNT/MDA (16 October; about 2,000 in-person interviews from 13 to 15 October; 2.2 points): Flávio 50.5%, Lula 49.5% of valid votes, and 46.8% to 45.9% of all answers (our report).
• Datafolha (15 October; 2,520 face-to-face interviews on 13 to 15 October; 2 points; BR-00466/2026): Flávio 51%, Lula 49% of valid votes, and 47% to 45% of all answers, a technical tie (our report). Among voters who identify with neither camp, Flávio has 59% of valid votes and Lula 41%, a 5-point margin of error for that group (swing-voter breakdown); 41% rate Lula’s government bad or terrible, 35% good or great and 23% regular (government rating).
• Quaest/Globo (14 October; 2,154 interviews from 10 to 13 October; 2 points; BR-08729/2026): Flávio 46%, Lula 44% of all answers, which is about 51.1% to 48.9% of valid votes by our calculation; 9% said they would vote blank, spoil their ballot or stay home (our report).
• PoderData/Aya (released 13 October; 3,000 telephone interviews from 10 to 12 October; margin of error 1.8 points; TSE BR-01209/2026): Flávio 51%, Lula 49%.
• BTG Pactual/Nexus (13 October; 2,002 telephone interviews from 10 to 12 October; 2 points; BR-07997/2026): Flávio 52%, Lula 48%.
• Futura Inteligência (13 October; 2,000 telephone interviews from 7 to 10 October; 2.2 points; BR-00650/2026): Flávio 51.8%, Lula 48.2% (our report).
• Gerp (13 October; 2,400 telephone interviews on 8, 9 and 12 October; 2 points; BR-07877/2026): Flávio 55%, Lula 45%.
• DataTrends (11 October; 2,000 automated telephone interviews from 7 to 9 October; 2.19 points; BR-03576/2026): Flávio 53.1%, Lula 46.9%.
• Ipespe/Abrapel (10 October; 1,500 interviews from 6 to 8 October; 2.6 points; BR-00933/2026): Flávio 52.7%, Lula 47.3% (our report).
• AtlasIntel (9 October; 5,026 online interviews from 3 to 8 October; 1 point; BR-03663/2026): Flávio 52.8%, Lula 47.2% (our report).
• Vox Brasil (first wave, 9 October; 2,100 in-person interviews from 5 to 7 October; 2.15 points; BR-09623/2026): Lula 50.86%, Flávio 49.14%.
• Datafolha (8 October; 2,520 face-to-face interviews on 6 and 7 October; 2 points; BR-02949/2026): Flávio 52%, Lula 48% (our report).

The three polls released on 16 October, PoderData/Aya, Futura/100% Cidades and CNT/MDA, show Flávio ahead by zero, 1.6 and 1 points, all inside their margins of error. PoderData’s lead has gone from six points on 8 October to two on 13 October, to a tie on 16 October and back to four points on 19 October, and Futura’s from 3.6 points on 13 October to 1.6 on 16 October and 0.8 on 19 October, while DataTrends’ lead fell from 6.2 points on 11 October to 3 on 19 October; Datafolha’s survey of 13 to 15 October, published on 15 October, cut Flávio’s lead from four points to two, and its survey of 20 to 22 October closed it to a 50-50 tie.

Every survey above is registered with the TSE, as Brazilian law requires before publication, and the registration lists the sponsor, sample and method. Our Brazil election polls tracker lists every survey with its fieldwork, method and trend.

Lula vs Flávio Bolsonaro on the Issues

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, 80, is a former metalworker and union leader who co-founded the Workers’ Party (PT), Brazil’s main left-wing party. He governed from 2003 to 2010, returned in January 2023 and seeks a fourth term with Vice-President Geraldo Alckmin of the centre-left Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) as his running mate (our Lula profile).

Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, has been a senator for Rio de Janeiro since 2019 and runs for the Liberal Party (PL), Brazil’s main conservative party, with Alfredo Gaspar as his running mate. He is the eldest son of Jair Bolsonaro, president from 2019 to 2022, who endorsed him in December 2025 and is serving a sentence of 27 years and 3 months under house arrest after the Supreme Court convicted him over a plot to overturn the 2022 election, which he denies (our Flávio Bolsonaro profile).

Former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro, Flávio’s stepmother, won a Senate seat for the Federal District on 4 October with 29.05% of valid votes and now campaigns for him, with a focus on women and evangelical voters (our profile). Lula leans on Alckmin to reassure business and on the Northeast, the region he swept in the first round.

The comparison below draws on the government programmes both candidates filed with the TSE in August, Lula’s 84 pages long and Flávio’s 76, and on their statements in the campaign. Our side-by-side guide, Lula vs Flávio Bolsonaro: Where They Stand on the Issues, quotes both programmes in more detail.

Economy and Taxes

• Lula: keep the current fiscal framework, seek lasting interest-rate cuts with inflation under control, and consolidate the income-tax exemption for monthly salaries up to R$5,000 (about US$1,000), paid for by taxing the very rich, exclusive investment funds and offshore holdings. On 13 October his government also proposed cancelling R$12.6 billion (about US$2.5 billion) in federal tax debts of about 3.6 million micro-entrepreneurs, which needs a bill in Congress (our report).
• Flávio: a “tesouraço” of spending cuts with at least ten fewer ministries, budget surpluses to stabilise and then cut public debt, a cap on discretionary spending, a revision of the tax reform to lower taxes on consumption, energy and fuel, and a return to privatisation. His plan also targets R$900 billion (about US$180 billion) of infrastructure investment over four years, mainly through concessions and private partnerships.

The United States and Trump

• Lula: his plan puts national sovereignty at the centre of foreign policy and cites “at least three waves” of tariff increases by the Trump government, answering them by diversifying Brazil’s trade partners.
• Flávio: his plan promises to repair relations with the United States, Argentina and Israel, which it says were pushed to “the brink of rupture”, and to seek diplomatic solutions to US, Chinese and European measures against Brazilian goods. He has pledged to bring Brazil into the Shield of the Americas, a US-led coalition against organised crime, and Donald Trump called his first-round lead “a big victory” (our report).

In the same interview, Lula said he does not want to apply Brazil’s reciprocity law against US tariffs but will if necessary, and that he wants to keep negotiating (our report).

China

• Lula: deepen ties with the BRICS group of emerging economies, which includes China, and with the Global South, strengthen the Mercosur trade bloc and push for reform of the UN, the IMF and the World Bank.
• Flávio: no break with Beijing, since his plan says Brazil should trade with China, the European Union, the United States and Asia according to its own interests rather than ideological affinity. China is Brazil’s largest export market, so both camps treat the trade link as a given. Beijing is weighing it too: CNN Brasil reported that sources in Beijing see Flávio as more pragmatic than his father, though they worry about an openly pro-US stance (our report).

Crime and Security

• Lula: a new Ministry of Public Security once the Senate passes a constitutional amendment on organised crime, R$10 billion (about US$2 billion) for states and cities, and a push against the gangs’ finances. On 13 October his government also published a decree on blocking cell phones inside prisons (our report on the amendment).
• Flávio: lower the age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16, and to 14 for serious crimes, classify the PCC and Comando Vermelho gangs and the militias as narco-terrorist organisations, and build five federal maximum-security prisons. Washington has listed the PCC and Comando Vermelho as Foreign Terrorist Organizations since 5 June 2026.

On 15 October, Senate President Davi Alcolumbre pulled the public security amendment, PEC 18/2025, from the floor agenda with no new date. Two of five floor amendments would lower the age of criminal responsibility, now 18: one by Rogério Marinho of the Liberal Party would set 16 as the general age and 14 for listed serious crimes, and one by Camilo Santana of the Workers’ Party would set 16 for serious crimes only (our report, how Lula’s camp split). On 19 October Alcolumbre signalled that he tends not to put the amendment to a vote before the runoff, Estadão’s Broadcast Político reported, though he had made no formal announcement (our report). A Datafolha survey of 2,520 people published on 17 October found 80% support for the cut to 16, so neither camp can easily oppose the idea (our report).

The Amazon and the Environment

• Lula: zero deforestation by 2030, wider satellite monitoring and the use of artificial intelligence against environmental crime, while expanding oil and gas and moving towards low-carbon energy.
• Flávio: end illegal deforestation by 2029, “eliminate overlaps” between the environment agency Ibama, the Indigenous affairs agency Funai and the parks agency ICMBio, speed up environmental licensing and allow shale-gas fracking. Folha de S.Paulo noted that his plan never uses the words “climate change”, while Lula’s mentions them nine times (our report).

Social Programmes

• Lula: “maintain and improve” the Bolsa Família cash transfer, keep real increases in the minimum wage and expand the gas allowance, full-time schooling and the Pé-de-Meia savings grant for poor secondary pupils.
• Flávio: keep the existing programmes but link recipients to training and jobs, and create a daycare voucher where public places are lacking. In a TV campaign slot reported by Congresso em Foco on 9 October, he promised to keep and adjust Bolsa Família payments.

In his TV Globo interview on 15 October, Lula said he did not know the Bolsa Família benefit had gone about three years without an inflation adjustment before the 15.04% rise (our report). Our explainer covers the programme’s history and its cost for the 2027 budget (Bolsa Família explained).

The Six-Day Work Week

• Lula: his plan backs ending the “6×1” roster of six working days and one day off and cutting the legal week from 44 to 40 hours with no pay cut, an amendment the Chamber of Deputies passed on 27 May.
• Flávio: after months of calling it opportunistic, he said on 13 October that he will vote for it in the Senate, adding that his camp defends “something even better” (our report). Congresso em Foco reports that he wants compensation for companies and more flexible hours, and the amendment needs 49 of 81 senators in each of two rounds.

The Courts

• Flávio: constitutional amendments to reform the Supreme Court and limit its justices’ individual rulings, end presidential re-election and lower the age of criminal responsibility, each of which needs 308 of 513 deputies and 49 of 81 senators (our report). He has also promised a pardon for his father, which legal experts say would not restore his eligibility.
• Lula: on 5 October he said fixed terms for Supreme Court justices should be assessed, after accusations involving justices in the case of the failed lender Banco Master, which are under investigation (our report).

On 14 October, Flávio’s campaign asked the TSE to cancel the Lula ticket over alleged union financing; these are allegations and the court has not ruled (our report). On 15 October, Judge Marco Aurélio Bellizze ordered Meta to treat both campaigns equally, with a fine of R$500,000 (about US$99,000) a day, and a local judge in Divinópolis, in an order reported on 15 October, directed a Federal Police inquiry into lawmaker-elect Ana Elisa, which is not a finding of guilt (our report, our report).

The Campaign So Far

The runoff campaign began on Monday, 5 October, the day after the first round, and it has been fought as much in the courts as on television. These are the main developments in date order, with links to our reports.

• 4 October: Flávio wins the first round with 47.03% to Lula’s 45.16% (results). Abstention reaches 21.08%, the highest in a first round since 1998 (our report).
• 5 October: Romeu Zema of the free-market Novo party, a former governor of Minas Gerais, declares his vote for Flávio. Donald Trump calls Flávio’s lead “a big victory” (our report), and the Ibovespa stock index jumps 7.7% to a record 206,911.89 points (our report).
• 6 October: Ronaldo Caiado, a former governor of Goiás who ran for the PSD, backs Flávio at an event in Goiânia (our report). União Brasil and the Progressistas (PP), a centre-right federation with 87 seats in the next Chamber, endorse him as a binding party line (our report).
• 7 October: Republicanos, the centre-right party of São Paulo governor Tarcísio de Freitas, and Novo formally back Flávio, so the parties behind him won 259 of the 513 Chamber seats (our report). Flávio lists the constitutional amendments he wants, including a Supreme Court reform.
• 8 October: the first runoff polls arrive, Datafolha with Flávio at 52% and PoderData at 53%. The TSE voids Anthony Garotinho’s votes by five to two, which hands Rio’s governorship to Douglas Ruas of the PL without a runoff (our report), and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes orders Flávio’s brother Eduardo, who lives in the United States, to start a prison sentence of 4 years and 2 months for coercion (our report).
• 9 October: free radio and TV campaign airtime begins, AtlasIntel puts Flávio at 52.8% and Vox Brasil puts Lula at 50.86%. The Federal Police ask the United States to help trace about R$61 million (about US$12 million) that Daniel Vorcaro, former owner of the failed Banco Master, put into the Bolsonaro film Dark Horse through a Texas fund; Flávio, one of those investigated, denies wrongdoing (our report). Also on 9 October, Justice Kássio Nunes Marques, who presides over the electoral court, orders a union newspaper stopped at the request of Flávio’s campaign. The paper, a special September edition by the oil workers’ union Sindipetro Unificado São Paulo on what each candidate’s project defends for Brazil, must be pulled from print and online, with a fine of R$10,000 (about US$2,000) a day for non-compliance (our report).
• 10 October: Lula’s campaign accuses Meta, the US owner of Instagram, of blocking paid promotion of his posts, which Meta calls “simply false” (our report). TSE president Kassio Nunes Marques, a Supreme Court justice appointed by Jair Bolsonaro, provisionally suspends a Lula ad that tied Flávio and Gaspar to criminal cases, and Paraná governor Ratinho Junior of the PSD backs Flávio (our report).
• 11 October: at the request of Flávio’s campaign, Nunes Marques orders WhatsApp to suspend “Exército do Lula” (Lula’s Army), a pro-Lula channel with more than 3 million members, and the court’s inspector-general provisionally restores it the same evening (our report). At a rally on São Paulo’s Avenida Paulista, Lula says he will not accept undue interference by the electoral court (our report).
• 12 October: TSE judge Marco Aurélio Bellizze orders Flávio and allies to delete within 24 hours a clip of apparent drug use falsely shared as footage of a Lula rally (our report). Flávio’s free TV slot airs without sound, which the TSE blames on a technical problem in the broadcasters’ pool (our report).
• 13 October: Lula announces the debt relief for micro-entrepreneurs, and Flávio says he will vote to end the six-day work week and will not attend Band’s debate (our report). Seventeen regional branches of the centrist MDB party declare for Flávio, and four new polls from Futura, Gerp, BTG/Nexus and PoderData all put him ahead.
• 13 October, the courts: at the request of Flávio’s Liberal Party, Nunes Marques suspends the restoration of “Exército do Lula” until the channel is registered with the electoral courts. Once Lula’s campaign registers it the same day, he allows it to post and take new followers again from 10:33 a.m. on Thursday, 15 October, Metrópoles and O Povo reported.
• 13 October, Meta and AI: Meta tells the electoral court that Lula’s accusation of bias is false, while admitting it wrongly suspended his campaign’s ad account in September and that a global glitch miscounted Instagram views on 7 October (our report). The same day, a TSE judge gives Jorge Messias, the government’s top lawyer, 24 hours to delete an AI-made pro-Lula video that carried no warning label (our report), five days after the full court ordered Flávio to delete an unlabelled AI video of Lula.
• 14 October: Quaest, in its first runoff poll for Globo, puts Flávio at 46% and Lula at 44%, a statistical tie, and finds that 91% of voters call their choice final (our report). The real weakens, with the Central Bank’s PTAX selling rate rising to R$5.0441 per dollar from R$5.0096 the day before.
• 14 October, the filing: Flávio’s campaign asks the TSE to cancel the Lula ticket and to investigate eight unions and left-leaning groups, among them the CUT labour federation, as alleged campaign committees. The main item cited is a video of an administrative director of a university teachers’ association saying the national union is putting money into committees in every state; these are allegations and the court has not ruled (our report).
• 15 October, the polls: Datafolha, with interviews on 13 to 15 October, puts Flávio at 51% and Lula at 49% of valid votes, a technical tie and a narrowing from 52% to 48% a week earlier (our report).
• 15 October, the Globo interview: In his TV Globo interview with Renata Lo Prete, Lula says he did not know the Bolsa Família benefit had gone about three years without an inflation adjustment (our report) and that he does not want to apply Brazil’s reciprocity law against US tariffs but will if necessary (our report).
• 15 October, the Senate: Senate President Davi Alcolumbre pulls the public security amendment, PEC 18/2025, from the floor agenda and gives no new date; five floor amendments were filed, two of them to lower the age of criminal responsibility, now 18 (our report).
• 15 October, Meta’s AI: TSE judge Marco Aurélio Bellizze orders Meta to treat both campaigns equally, with a fine of R$500,000 (about US$99,000) a day, after Lula’s campaign said Meta AI refused to create images of him; he finds a failure in the tool but no sign it was deliberate (our report).
• 15 October, a police inquiry: Brazilian outlets report that a local electoral judge in Divinópolis, Minas Gerais, had ordered the Federal Police to open an inquiry into Ana Elisa, a 21-year-old lawmaker-elect of Lula’s party, over posts Flávio says falsely claimed he wanted to remove Our Lady Aparecida as Brazil’s patron saint; the judge refused to bar her from posting (our report).
• 15 October, the electoral court: four of the seven ministers of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) vote online to overturn Justice André Mendonça’s order to delete a Lula campaign video that tied Flávio’s “tesouraço” (big-cuts) spending pledge to cuts in social programmes. Mendonça then moves the case to an in-person session, and one press report says his order stays in force until it resumes (our report).
• 15 October, the markets: Polymarket’s price for a Flávio win slips from about 79% in the late morning to about 75% around midday, then recovers to 78.6% by 4 p.m. ET; no source ties the dip to the court case (our report).
• 15 October, a campaign ad: TSE Justice André Mendonça suspends a Lula campaign TV ad that tied Flávio to militias, with a fine of R$10,000 (about US$1,970) for each new broadcast, because it presented him as part of organised crime without showing the link; the full court has yet to ratify the order (our report).
• 16 October, security: Rio de Janeiro’s regional electoral court (TRE-RJ) votes on Thursday 15 October to ask the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) for federal troops for the runoff, with Army, Navy and Air Force personnel helping to deliver voting machines and patrol 15 cities including Rio de Janeiro and Niterói, because armed gangs and militias still control large areas of the Rio region (our report). In the same Globo interview, Lula says he favours lowering the age of criminal responsibility, now 18, to 16 for heinous crimes, but not inside the security amendment the Senate pulled from its agenda that day with no new date announced (our report). Our explainer on the Bolsa Família remark covers what happens next with the benefit.
• 16 October, the US terror label: in the Globo interview Lula rejects Washington’s terrorist label for the PCC and Comando Vermelho gangs, saying they are terrorists for the communities they rule but “only want money”, and says Brazil has offered President Donald Trump a written proposal to fight organised crime together, built on Federal Police experience. The US State Department announced the designation on 28 May and it took effect on 5 June; the label exposes banks and companies that deal with the gangs to US penalties, and Flávio had asked Trump for it when they met on 26 May (our report).
• 16 October, the betting-firm flights: Brazilian newspapers report that a Federal Police file on Willer Tomaz, a Brasília lawyer and friend of Flávio who is investigated in an INSS pension-fraud case, lists flight records for at least three private jet legs in 2025 booked through Cathedral Holdings, a Madeira-registered firm that owns the betting company Rede Loto. Flávio calls the link speculation, Tomaz’s lawyers say Tomaz paid himself, and no outlet reports a charge against Flávio (our report).
• 16 October, three polls: PoderData/Aya puts the race at 50% to 50% of valid votes, down from a 53% to 47% Flávio lead on 8 October; Futura/100% Cidades has Flávio at 50.8% and Lula at 49.2%; and CNT/MDA has Flávio at 50.5% and Lula at 49.5% (PoderData, Futura, CNT/MDA).
• 16 October, Salvador: a Bahia state judge bars Salvador’s city council from giving Flávio the city’s citizen title at his rally on Saturday 17 October, with a fine of R$500,000 (about US$99,000) for non-compliance; the honour itself is not cancelled but must wait until the election process ends (our report).
• 16 October, WhatsApp rules: the TSE unanimously approves six criteria, which do not all have to be met, for deciding when a WhatsApp channel belongs to a campaign, after a dispute over “Exército do Lula” (Lula’s Army), a channel run by federal deputy André Janones (our report).
• 16 October, unions: electoral inspector-general Ricardo Villas Bôas Cueva refuses urgent orders sought by Flávio’s campaign against unions and student groups backing Lula but keeps the case open; the campaign has 72 hours to name specific conduct for 37 of 54 leaders (our report).
• 16 October, an endorsement: Roberto Cláudio, a physician and former mayor of Fortaleza who was Ciro Gomes’s running mate in the Ceará governor race, says he will vote for Flávio; Gomes, leader of the PSDB, has not endorsed either candidate (our report).
• 16 October, Meta: Folha de S.Paulo reports internal messages in which staff at Meta, the US owner of Instagram, acknowledged restrictions that hurt Lula’s accounts; his campaign could not boost existing posts for about 24 hours from 9 October and says about 1.3 million people missed its ads, while Meta denies interfering and blames technical faults (our report).
• 16 October, the Band debate: Band and Estadão confirm the first runoff debate for Sunday 18 October at 8 p.m. Brasília time, 7 p.m. US Eastern (our report).
• 16 October, the US reply: in a letter dated 15 October to Democratic lawmakers, the US State Department backs “the right of the Brazilian people to a free and fair electoral process” but does not promise to accept the certified result, and it defends its measures against Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes (our report).
• 16 October, Gerp: the Gerp institute puts Flávio at 52% and Lula at 48% of valid votes, down from 55% to 45% on 13 October, which lowers our average to 51.4% for Flávio (our report).
• 16 October, Lula on the five-day week: at a rally in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, Lula warns that Bolsonaro supporters would bring back the six-day schedule if they win, hours after Congress promulgated the amendment that ends it (our report).
• 16 October, the electoral court on ads and Meta: minister Estela Aranha bars Flávio’s campaign from showing again an ad that tied a Lula remark to child abuse (our report), and the full court votes 7 to 0 in a virtual session to keep in force the 15 October order that Meta treat both campaigns equally, which carries a fine of R$500,000 (about US$99,000) a day (our report on the unanimous vote, earlier report).
• 16 October, Meta’s answer: Meta says it did not interfere in the election but admits a faulty shutdown of Lula’s ad account for about an hour on 23 September and a view-count fault on 7 October (our report).
• 16 October, the WhatsApp channel: Lula’s coalition asks the TSE to rule that the “Exército do Lula” channel is not part of its campaign (our report), and TSE president Kássio Nunes Marques authorises the coalition to unlink it, without deciding whether the channel is in fact tied to the campaign (our report).
• 16 October, polling places: the TSE announces new addresses for 4,352 voting sections, 0.87% of the 499,248 in the country, with São Paulo (982), Minas Gerais (514), Rio de Janeiro (431) and Bahia (312) the most affected (our report).
• 16 October, the Supreme Court: a Datafolha survey finds 59% of Brazilians want fixed terms for Supreme Court justices and 65% want an end to single-justice rulings on major issues, with majorities of both candidates’ voters in favour of most changes (our report).
• 16 October, Flávio on Globo: in his TV Globo interview with Renata Lo Prete he says he will not try to reverse the end of the six-day work schedule (our report). He also vows to declare the PCC, the Comando Vermelho and the militias “narcoterrorist organisations” and to “declare war on narcotrafficking” from January 2027, and says Brazil will join the Shield of the Americas, the US-led security coalition launched in March 2026, to share intelligence on the Foz do Iguaçu tri-border area (our report).
• 16 October, the payroll pledge: in his 30-second free TV spot Flávio says a government of his would “make up the difference by cutting taxes, lowering interest rates and relieving the payroll” to offset the cost to employers of the end of the 6×1 schedule, in our translation from Portuguese, without saying how (our report).
• 16 October, Lula and Globo: Lula says TV Globo is “under suspicion” of his campaign after Flávio lunched at its Rio de Janeiro headquarters with group president João Roberto Marinho hours before his interview; Globo calls it an institutional visit (our report).
• 17 October, the swing voters: Datafolha’s 15 October survey, detailed on Saturday, shows Flávio ahead 59% to 41% of valid votes among voters who identify with neither Lula’s PT nor the Bolsonaro camp, and 41% rating Lula’s government bad or terrible against 35% good or great, almost unchanged from 40% and 35% (swing voters, government rating).
• 17 October, two more polls: Ipespe/Abrapel puts Flávio at 51.2% and Lula at 48.8% of valid votes, down from 52.7% to 47.3% a week earlier (our report), and Veritá, polling 15,554 voters, has 51.1% to 48.9% (our report). Both leads are about two points, and our Brazil election polls tracker now averages twelve pollsters at 51.2% for Flávio.
• 17 October, criminal age: a Datafolha survey of 2,520 people published on Saturday finds 80% of Brazilians support lowering the age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16 and 18% oppose, including 89% of Flávio’s voters and 70% of Lula’s (our report).
• 17 October, campaign concerts: the Novo party, a small free-market party that backs Flávio, asks the electoral court (TSE) to suspend pro-Lula music events planned for Sunday 18 October in Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and Porto Alegre, arguing that they are showmícios, campaign concerts that Brazilian electoral law bans. The electoral inspector-general, Ricardo Villas Bôas Cueva, rejected the request before the events, saying there was not enough evidence that they were campaign rallies for Lula and that political closeness between organisers and Lula does not prove a financial or organisational link; the ruling is not advance approval, so the court can still examine concrete violations (the request, the ruling).
• 17 October, Meta ads: Flávio’s campaign asks the electoral court (TSE) late on Friday, 16 October, to join Lula’s case against Meta, the US owner of Facebook and Instagram, saying Lula’s Facebook page has paid for 3,908 negative ads against him since September, a claim we have not verified; Meta says it takes no side in this or any other election, in its own statement of 16 October (our report).
• 17 October, Belo Horizonte: a driver hits a 67-year-old man at a pro-Lula demonstration in the centre of Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, at about 6:30 p.m. Brasília time on Saturday, and police arrest him in flagrante on suspicion of attempted homicide. The driver says protesters threw water bottles and beer cans at his car and hit his wife, and that he did not notice hitting the man (our report).
• 18 October, polling places: the TSE updates its data to show 2,033 voting sections with a new address for the runoff, affecting about 592,000 voters, and Lula’s coalition asks the court to publicise the moves widely and help voters travel, citing the 21.08% abstention in the first round (our report).
• 18 October, Vox Brasil: the pollster’s second runoff survey, 2,100 face-to-face interviews on 15 to 17 October, has Lula ahead by 51% to 49% of valid votes, from 50.86% to 49.14% on 9 October, with 3.9% undecided; our Brazil election polls tracker keeps the average of twelve pollsters at 51.2% for Flávio.
• 18 October, Band debate: Lula and Flávio meet face to face for the first time in the campaign at the Band television debate in São Paulo, which began at about 7 p.m. US Eastern. They clash over debt, spending and food prices: Flávio says he could create more than R$200 billion (about US$39.5 billion) of room in the federal budget, and Lula asks whether Flávio would “borrow Milei’s chainsaw”, a reference to Argentina’s spending-cut president (our report). No poll had measured the debate’s effect by Monday morning.
• 18 October, moved polling places: Lula’s campaign, reported to have filed a petition with the TSE on Saturday 17 October, asks the court for free transport and individual notices for voters whose polling place moved. We found no TSE ruling on it by Sunday evening (our report).
• 19 October, BTG/Nexus poll: the poll puts Flávio at 50.3% and Lula at 49.7% of valid votes, a 0.6-point gap inside the 2-point margin of error, against 52% to 48% on 13 October; our Brazil election polls tracker now averages twelve pollsters at 51.1% for Flávio (our report).
• 19 October, DataTrends and Futura polls: two more runoff polls show narrower leads for Flávio: DataTrends at 51.5% to 48.5% of valid votes, against 53.1% to 46.9% on 11 October, and Futura/100% Cidades at 50.4% to 49.6%, a 0.8-point gap inside its 2.2-point margin of error (DataTrends report, Futura report).
• 19 October, AtlasIntel poll: the AtlasIntel survey for Bloomberg, with 4,998 online interviews from 13 to 18 October, puts Flávio at 51.1% and Lula at 48.9% of valid votes, a 2.2-point gap against 5.6 points on 9 October; our Brazil election polls tracker now averages twelve pollsters at 50.9% for Flávio, and the interviews ended on the day of the Band debate (our report).
• 19 October, finance minister: O Globo columnist Lauro Jardim writes that economist Adolfo Sachsida, who helps coordinate Flávio’s economic plan, is almost certain to return to the economic team, possibly as finance minister, and Folha de S.Paulo reported that Jair Bolsonaro prefers him for the post. Flávio has not named a finance minister (our report).
• 19 October, debate fallout: lobbyist Roberta Luchsinger, who faces three Federal Police inquiries, answers Lula by video while the debate is still on air, saying he and his ministers are lying about their relationship with her and with his son. She offered no evidence in the video (our report). Separately, Lula’s claim of eight straight primary surpluses partly holds up, because Treasury data show surpluses in every year from 2003 to 2010 but deficits in 2023, 2024 and 2025 (our report).
• 19 October, debate fact-check: The fact-checking outlet Aos Fatos checks the Band debate and finds errors on both sides. Flávio’s claim that trips by Lula and his wife Janja cost R$7 billion (about US$1.4 billion) is wrong, because Aos Fatos found on 5 October that the figure is travel spending by all federal bodies in 2023 to 2025, while the Presidency itself spent R\$150.5 million (about US\$30 million) (our report).
• 19 October, markets: Brazil’s Ibovespa stock index closed at 205,430 points on 16 October, about 23% above its 14 August level, while a report published on 18 October says election rallies in neighbouring Colombia and Chile have faded (our report).
• 19 October, PoderData poll: PoderData/Aya puts Flávio at 52% and Lula at 48% of valid votes in interviews on 16 to 18 October, up from a 50% tie three days earlier, so our Brazil election polls tracker now averages twelve pollsters at 51.1% for Flávio and 48.9% for Lula (our report).
• 19 October, electoral court and social media: Ricardo Villas Bôas Cueva, the court’s electoral inspector, bars Nikolas Ferreira, a conservative federal deputy, and the influencer Pablo Marçal from reposting content the courts already ordered removed, with a fine of R$50,000 (about US$9,900) per violation, and tells Meta and X to stop paid promotion of both accounts until 11:59 p.m. on 25 October, on pain of R$500,000 (about US$99,000) a day per platform (our report).
• 19 October, Meta: Minister Marco Aurélio Bellizze gives Meta, the US owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, 24 hours to prove it treats the Lula and Flávio campaigns equally, and the daily fine for non-compliance, now R$500,000 (about US$99,000), can double to R$1 million (about US$198,000) (our report).
• 19 October, the real: the dollar traded near R$5.05 on Monday morning, below Friday’s close, according to RT market data (our report).
• 19 October, Rio governor: Justice Cristiano Zanin of the STF gives the TSE five days to explain its 8 October ruling that annulled 274,411 votes for Anthony Garotinho and lifted Douglas Ruas of the PL from 49.27% to 50.88% of valid votes, on a petition by the PSD; the Attorney General’s Office (AGU) and the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGR) are to give their views afterwards, and Zanin has not decided whether to suspend the ruling (our report).
• 19 October, Senate: Senate President Davi Alcolumbre signals that he tends not to put the public security amendment, PEC 18/2025, to a vote before the runoff, Estadão’s Broadcast Político reports, and had made no formal announcement by Monday (our report).
• 19 October, bank records: Lula said in a social-media video that he will prepare powers of attorney letting courts open his own bank and phone records and those of his children, on condition that Flávio Bolsonaro does the same for himself and his family; the papers would go to the presidents of the electoral court (TSE), Kássio Nunes Marques, and the Supreme Federal Court (STF), Edson Fachin. Lula first raised the idea at the Band debate on Sunday 18 October, where he told Flávio he had one week to accept, and Flávio had not formally accepted as of Monday (our report).
• 19 October, polling places: the electoral court’s count of voting sections with a new address falls to 444, affecting about 130,000 voters in 22 states, Agência Brasil reports, far below the earlier counts of 4,352 sections and 2,033 sections (about 592,000 voters) (our report).
• 19 October, Meta complaint: the Lula campaign tells the electoral court that Meta is not obeying its equal-treatment order, press reports say; Meta said on 16 October that it does not favour any candidate (our report).
• 20 October, Meta: Meta tells the electoral court it has adopted measures to ensure equal treatment, as its 15 October order requires, and files a technical declaration, saying it saw no negligence or resistance on its side and treats content on both campaigns equally; the court had not ruled on the filing in the reports we reviewed (our report).
• 20 October, Real Time Big Data poll: the Brazilian pollster puts Flávio at 52% and Lula at 48% of valid votes, and at 48% to 45% of all answers, in 2,000 interviews from 15 to 19 October with a margin of error of 2 points (TSE registration BR-02952/2026); the interviews ended on the day after the Band debate (our report).
• 20 October, Alfa poll: Alfa Inteligência publishes a runoff survey of 2,700 voters interviewed in person on 15 to 19 October, with Flávio at 51.5% and Lula at 48.5% of valid votes, a 3-point lead that Brazilian outlets call a technical tie, since the 1.9-point margin of error applies to each candidate’s share; our Brazil election polls tracker now averages fourteen pollsters at about 51% for Flávio and 49% for Lula (our report).
• 20 October, Novo complaint: Novo, a pro-market party, asks the electoral court to cancel the Lula-Alckmin ticket and declare both ineligible for eight years, citing 35 government benefit measures issued from 1 January to 16 October, 12 of them in the campaign period; the court had not ruled in the reports we reviewed (our report).
• 20 October, São Luís: Lula says in São Luís, the capital of Maranhão state, that on Wednesday 21 October he will send Congress a constitutional amendment making public transport free on Saturdays and Sundays and sign a bill clearing federal tax debts of about 4 million micro-entrepreneurs; he also challenges Flávio to open his bank and phone records (our report). Quaest is due to publish a new runoff poll on Wednesday morning and Datafolha on Thursday afternoon.
• 20 October, Instituto França and Data Ranking polls: two more runoff polls point opposite ways inside their margins of error. Instituto França has Flávio at 50.8% and Lula at 49.2% of valid votes, while Data Ranking, run with the news portal Fonte83, has Lula at 50.4% and Flávio at 49.6%; with both in, our simple average of sixteen pollsters is 51.0% for Flávio and 49.0% for Lula (França report, Data Ranking report).
• 20 October, voter arrests: the electoral court says that from Tuesday 20 October no voter can be arrested or detained except in the flagrante, criminal-conviction and safe-conduct exceptions, until 48 hours after voting ends on Sunday 25 October, so through Tuesday 27 October (our report).
• 20 October, Milei: Brazil’s foreign ministry, known as Itamaraty, calls remarks by Argentine President Javier Milei, who has endorsed Flávio, a “new and unacceptable attempt at external interference in the Brazilian democratic process”, after Milei wrote that he hoped “their last dirty trick” would not include stealing the election (our report).
• 20 October, Globo petition: a Change.org petition asking TV Globo to fact-check the candidates live in its debate on Friday 23 October passes 400,000 signatures on Tuesday, and Camilo Santana of Lula’s campaign says live fact-checking is essential (our report).
• 20 October, bank records: Lula’s lawyers ask the electoral court (TSE) to open his own bank, tax and phone records and those of his wife Janja and his five children, on condition that Flávio and members of his family do the same, with publication requested before Wednesday 21 October; Minister André Mendonça, a Supreme Court justice and vice-president of the TSE, is assigned to rule on it, and the sources we reviewed report no ruling (our report).
• 20 October, WhatsApp complaint: Flávio’s campaign asks the TSE to stop mass WhatsApp messages the government sent about social programmes such as Bolsa Família and to cancel the registrations of Lula and his running mate, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, alleging abuse of political and economic power; the sources report no ruling and no public reply from Lula’s team (our report).
• 20 October, post ban: the electoral court (TSE) votes unanimously in plenary session to uphold an order by Justice Estela Aranha that removed social media posts linking Flávio to the Federal Police money-laundering case Operation Unha e Carne and to organized crime; the court found the posts had no factual basis, and Flávio’s defence says he is not investigated in the operation (our report).
• 20 October, Meta Oversight Board: the independent panel that reviews Meta’s moderation decisions says in a statement by its co-chairs that Meta has shown “recurring enforcement failures” in its election integrity work, citing restrictions under its fraud policies on the ad accounts of Lula’s campaign in Brazil and the removal of a US protest group’s Instagram account; the statement imposes nothing on Meta, and the electoral court’s order stays the binding rule (our report).
• 21 October, Meio/Ideia poll: the Brazilian institute Meio/Ideia, in a survey commissioned by the news site Meio, puts Flávio at 51.1% and Lula at 48.9% of valid votes, a technical tie inside its 2.5-point margin of error; our simple average of eighteen pollsters is 51.0% for Flávio and 49.0% for Lula (our report).
• 21 October, three more polls: Quaest for Globo has Flávio at 45% and Lula at 44% of all answers, or 50.6% to 49.4% of valid votes, in interviews that included the Band debate (our report); the online pollster Palver has about 51% to 49% (our report); and Futura/100% Cidades has 51.1% to 48.9% (our report). Our simple average of nineteen pollsters stays at 51.1% for Flávio and 48.9% for Lula.
• 21 October, Meta: Marco Aurélio Bellizze, the electoral court (TSE) minister handling Lula’s campaign complaint about Meta, the US owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has asked the election prosecutors, in a request reported on 21 October, for an opinion within 24 hours on whether Meta’s steps meet the court’s equal-treatment order; Meta denies favouring any candidate (our report).
• 21 October, Veritá poll: the Instituto Veritá, a Brazilian polling institute, puts Flávio at 50.7% and Lula at 49.3% of valid votes in a survey of 15,554 people from 15 to 19 October, down from 51.1% to 48.9% on 17 October, so his lead narrowed from 2.2 points to 1.4 (our report).
• 21 October, small-business debt: Lula signs a law that cancels federal tax debts of micro-entrepreneurs, people who run one-person businesses, registered up to 13 October, and raises their yearly revenue cap from R$81,000 (about US$16,100) to R$110,000 (about US$21,800) in 2027 and R$140,000 (about US$27,800) in 2028; the debt forgiven is about R$12.6 billion (about US$2.5 billion), at the rate of R$5.04 per US$ (our report).
• 21 October, WhatsApp channels: Justice André Mendonça of the electoral court (TSE) says a draft rule that would block political WhatsApp channels with more than 200,000 users from 48 hours before the vote to 24 hours after depends on a vote by the full court; court president Kassio Nunes Marques says he opposes last-minute changes to election rules (our report). A group of 110 legal scholars and civil society leaders then sends the court a technical note that calls the draft a mistake: a WhatsApp channel is free and reaches only people who chose to follow it, so it is not paid boosting, and blocking it days before the vote would change the race, Jornal de Brasília and Revista Fórum report (our report).
• 21 October, panda bond: Brazil’s Treasury plans its first panda bond, a bond sold inside China in yuan, starting with 5 billion yuan (about US$750 million at 6.68 yuan per dollar, RT market data), and has said it wants to raise about 10 billion yuan (about US$1.5 billion) this year; no sale date is public (our report).
• 21 October, TV ad: Marco Aurélio Bellizze, a minister of the electoral court (TSE), orders Lula’s campaign to stop airing a television ad that links Flávio to harassment of women, a preliminary ruling on Flávio’s complaint; Bellizze refused for now to strip the campaign of its free airtime (our report).
• 21 October, US and Ramagem: the US Department of Homeland Security says Alexandre Ramagem, the former head of Brazil’s intelligence agency under Jair Bolsonaro, who fled Brazil in September 2025 after a 16-year sentence for the coup attempt, overstayed his visa and is an illegal immigrant, Agência Pública reports (our report).
• 21 October, foreign minister: Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira tells the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo that representatives of Donald Trump’s government took a side in the election, and calls Flávio’s offer of a transition team for the US government, which a letter from Secretary of State Marco Rubio dated 23 June welcomed, “a very bad sign” (our report).
• 21 October, UN experts and Meta: independent human rights experts working with the UN ask Meta, the US owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, to explain whether its moderation, recommendation and artificial intelligence systems curbed one side of the race. Meta denies favouring either side, Poder360 and Brasil de Fato report (our report).
• 21 October, free buses: Supreme Court Justice Cármen Lúcia refuses to order free buses on all lines between states on voting day, saying it cannot be organised in four days, but gives the electoral court (TSE) 48 hours to report on lines that link neighbouring towns across state borders; a coalition backing Lula had asked for the order (our report).
• 21 October, Lula’s voice: Lula cancels a TV Record interview and the recording of his campaign TV slots to rest a hoarse voice, on the advice of his speech therapist, two days before the Globo debate (our report).
• 21 October, Gerp: the Gerp institute, which polled 2,400 voters by telephone from 19 to 21 October with a 2-point margin of error, puts Flávio at 53% and Lula at 47% of valid votes, up from 52% to 48% on 16 October (our report; every survey is in our Brazil election polls tracker).
• 21 October, prosecutors and Meta: Brazil’s federal prosecutors (MPF) sue Meta, the US owner of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, in a federal court in Porto Alegre. They ask for accounts and posts restricted during the campaign to be restored after more than 1,000 complaints in September and October, and for an end to blocking accounts by automated systems alone; Meta has said it does not take sides in any election (our report). Brazil’s national data protection agency, the ANPD, had already given Meta five business days from Monday, 19 October, to explain how it suspends accounts and removes content (our report), and our explainer on the Meta election restrictions dispute sets out the claims on both sides.
• 21 October, Estadão and Meta: the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo asks the electoral court to stop Meta deleting its election posts, saying at least 31 Instagram posts were removed around the first round; Meta blamed misuse of artificial intelligence, which the paper denies, and no ruling had been reported by 22 October (our report).
• 21 October, stocks: the Ibovespa, Brazil’s main stock index, falls 0.9% to 206,495 points in a session when the Quaest poll shows a one-point race (our report).
• 22 October, PoderData: a new PoderData/Aya poll, with 4,000 interviews from 19 to 21 October, puts Flávio at 51% and Lula at 49% of valid votes, a two-point lead that Brazilian media call a technical tie, after a four-point lead on 19 October (our report).
• 22 October, Indexa poll: the Brazilian pollster Indexa, working for the news service Broadcast, has Flávio at 50.6% and Lula at 49.4% of valid votes, a 1.2-point gap inside its 2.2-point margin of error; with Indexa in, our simple average of twenty pollsters stays at 51.0% for Flávio and 49.0% for Lula (our report).
• 22 October, Meta: Brazil’s electoral prosecutor says in an opinion made public on Thursday that Meta, the US owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has not fully obeyed electoral court orders to treat the two campaigns equally, and suggests a fine without naming an amount; the fine already in force, set by the court’s judge on the case, Marco Aurélio Bellizze, is R$500,000 (about US$99,000) a day (our report).
• 22 October, pensioners: the electoral court’s inspector-general, Ricardo Villas Bôas Cueva, rejects a request by Flávio’s campaign to stop federal government WhatsApp messages telling pensioners that voting also counts as proof of life for the INSS, the national social security agency; he says the messages look informative and he found no call to vote or reference to a candidacy in them, and the campaign’s wider lawsuit is still open (our report).
• 22 October, Meta report: the court’s president, Kassio Nunes Marques, gives Meta 24 hours to hand over a technical report on “Exército do Lula” (Lula’s Army), the pro-Lula WhatsApp channel, at the request of Flávio’s campaign, and asks Google whether it saw coordinated amplification of terms and hashtags from 18 to 20 October (our report).
• 22 October, Datafolha: the Datafolha poll for Folha de S.Paulo and TV Globo, with 2,154 interviews from 20 to 22 October, has Flávio and Lula tied at 50% of valid votes, after 51% to 49% a week earlier; 46% of voters say they would never vote for Flávio and 45% for Lula, and 49% approve of the Lula government against 48% who disapprove, which puts our simple average of twenty pollsters at 50.9% for Flávio and 49.1% for Lula (our report, rejection, approval).
• 22 October, stocks: the Ibovespa falls 1.15% to 204,120 points, about 2.4% below its record close of 209,066.90 on 9 October, and the real weakens to about R$5.04 per US dollar (our report).
• 22 October, candidates’ records: Justice André Mendonça, vice-president of the electoral court (TSE), rules that the court will not referee the swap of Lula’s and Flávio’s bank, tax and phone records, because candidates may publish their own data without a judge’s approval; Lula’s campaign then asks him to reconsider and to have the TSE collect the data and release it for both men at once, arguing that otherwise nothing guarantees simultaneous disclosure (our report).
• 23 October, last polls: Real Time Big Data has Flávio at 52% and Lula at 48% of valid votes, unchanged from its 20 October poll (our report), while Vox Brasil has Lula at 50.6% and Flávio at 49.4% (our report), both inside their margins of error. Ipespe/Abrapel has Flávio at 50.5% and Lula at 49.5% (our report) and DataTrends has Flávio at 51.9% and Lula at 48.1% (our report); our simple average of twenty pollsters is 50.9% for Flávio and 49.1% for Lula.
• 23 October, inflation: Brazil’s mid-month inflation preview, the IPCA-15, rises 0.32% in October against 0.43% expected, which takes the 12-month rate to 4.62%, on the last trading day before the vote (our report).
• 23 October, Meta and X: the court’s inspector-general, Justice Ricardo Villas Bôas Cueva, gives Meta and the social network X 24 hours to file technical reports on how they use artificial intelligence, distribute political content and place election ads, in a case brought by Lula’s coalition, which says the platforms may favour Flávio; the judge notes that opening the case does not confirm the claim, although O Tempo reports he sees signs of unequal treatment that remain unproven (our report).
• 22 October, US lawmakers: US Representative Pramila Jayapal and Senator Bernie Sanders publish a letter demanding answers from Meta over reports that its platforms restricted content tied to Lula; the letter relays allegations and is not a finding (our report).
• 23 October, Veritá poll: the Instituto Veritá, a Brazilian polling institute, puts Flávio at 51.3% and Lula at 48.7% of valid votes in a survey of 15,554 people from 18 to 22 October, up from 50.7% to 49.3% on 21 October, so his lead grew from 1.4 points to 2.6 (our report).
• 23 October, WhatsApp channel: an electoral court minister, Floriano de Azevedo Marques, rules at the request of the coalition backing Lula that nobody may suspend the pro-Lula channel “Exército do Lula” before the full court decides, and sets a fine of R$50,000 (about US$10,000) a day for Meta, the US owner of WhatsApp, if it does not comply, Exame reported (our report).
• 23 October, records swap: Lula’s campaign says it gave the electoral court (TSE) records of the Presidency’s corporate card and of official flights, plus a waiver for bank, tax and phone data, on Thursday night, while the two camps still disagree over how the data should be released, CNN Brasil reported (our report).
• 23 October, Petrobras diesel: Goldman Sachs warns that state-controlled Petrobras could need to raise its diesel price by about 50% after the runoff if extra aid for importers ends, although the bank’s base case is no change before the end of the year, Exame and InfoMoney reported (our report).
• 23 October, Ramagem: CIPER Chile reports that Alexandre Ramagem, the former intelligence chief sentenced to 16 years for the coup plot, has been free in Florida since 15 April while his asylum request is pending, although the US Department of Homeland Security says the request gives him no legal status (our report).
• 23 October, leaked Meta files: the digital-rights group CTRL+Z reports that an internal Meta report dated 19 October lists at least six high-priority problems still open on Instagram and the Meta AI app, including faults in search, stories and comments on Lula’s profile; Meta said on 16 October that the episodes were technical incidents and that it is not interfering in the election (our report).
• 23 October, Federal District poll: Datafolha, interviewing 910 voters in the Federal District, the territory around Brasília, from 20 to 22 October, has Flávio at 55% and Lula at 45% of valid votes; it is a local survey and is not part of our national average (our report).
• 23 October, tech firms: Meta, X and Google tell the electoral court (TSE) that they found no rule-breaking so far in “Exército do Lula” (Lula’s Army), the pro-Lula WhatsApp channel, which reached 10 million members that day; X says the coordinated activity around 58 hashtags came mainly from real users (our report).
• 23 October, last debate: Lula and Flávio hold their second and last runoff debate on TV Globo in Rio de Janeiro, moderated by César Tralli. Flávio calls Lula “nine fingers”, a jibe at the finger Lula lost in a factory accident, and then apologises on air (our report).
• 23 October, stocks: the Ibovespa rises 0.47% to 205,082.56 points on the last trading day before the vote, ending the week 0.17% lower and October 10.06% higher, and the dollar closes below R$5 (our report).
• 23 October, court order: Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes orders up to R$6 billion (about US$1.19 billion) frozen from lawyer Willer Tomaz, a friend of Flávio, and cancels his passports in a money-laundering inquiry. Police read a May 2025 message to Santander as showing Flávio as a “master user” of an Alcazar Holdings account; Flávio denies sharing an account, and no charge against him is known (our report).
• 23 October, budget: Finance Minister Dario Durigan, who also coordinates economic policy for Lula’s campaign, tells UOL that the R$200 billion (about US$39.7 billion) spending cut Flávio has promised is “totally impossible” for next year without serious harm to basic services, which is one side’s claim in the campaign (our report).
• Final week, online videos: Minister Estela Aranha of the electoral court ordered the removal of social media videos that show three detainees in shirts backing Lula after an arrest in Piracicaba, in São Paulo state. She wrote that the clips wrongly tie Lula’s Workers’ Party to crime, while military police are accused of forcing the shirts on the detainees and the police ombudsman is investigating (our report).
• 24 October, voters abroad: about 265,000 Brazilians in the United States are registered to vote in the runoff, the largest overseas list, with Boston, Miami and New York the largest lists; voters abroad choose only the president (our report).
• 24 October, explainer: our explainer sets out who Willer Tomaz is, what the police documents say about the Alcazar companies and the account, and what Flávio’s defence disputes (our explainer).
• 24 October, final polls: the last two polls we track before the vote keep the race inside the margins of error: Instituto França has Flávio at 51.4% and Lula at 48.6% of valid votes, and CNT/MDA has 50.7% to 49.3% (França report, CNT/MDA report).
• 24 October, campaign ads: Supreme Court Justice Dias Toffoli, who also sits on the electoral court, tells international observers that the courts should find ways to stop free campaign airtime from becoming a “ring” of personal attacks, a call about future elections rather than a new rule (our report).
• 24 October, Indigenous voters: Attorney General Paulo Gonet asked the Supreme Court to suspend part of an electoral court order that requires a judge’s approval for each federal transport trip carrying Indigenous voters, saying some river journeys must start on Saturday. The Supreme Court had not ruled when the reports were published (our report).
• 24 October, security: about 25,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen will support the electoral courts on Sunday, with voting and counting guarded in 306 municipalities in 11 states (our report).
• 25 October, China: on runoff day, our report sets out how Beijing is weighing the risks of a Flávio government for its trade with Brazil, citing CNN Brasil’s September reporting on Chinese sources and a São Paulo news site’s expert interviews; neither quotes a Chinese official on the record (our report).
• 25 October, poll workers: on Saturday night Flávio asked supporters in a live video to return to their polling places after 5 p.m. and monitor the poll workers; Estadão says the claim behind his request is false, and the electoral court had ordered a similar audio removed on Friday, 23 October (our report).
• 25 October, vote abroad: Brazilians in Wellington, New Zealand, were the first to finish voting and gave Lula 418 votes to 101 for Flávio (our report). In mainland China, Brasil de Fato’s unofficial count of ballot-box reports shows Lula ahead by 375 to 134 (our report). Brazilians abroad are only about 0.6% of voters, so this is not a forecast.
• 25 October, result time: Kassio Nunes Marques, president of the electoral court (TSE), said voting was going “within what was expected” and that he expects the result between 8:30 and 9 p.m. Brasília time, which is 7:30 to 8 p.m. ET (our report).
• 25 October, voter transport: Lula’s party federation asked the electoral court to extend voting until 7 p.m. Brasília time in Salvador, Feira de Santana and Lauro de Freitas, in Bahia state, after reports of bus cuts (our report). The Bahia regional electoral court ordered Salvador’s full bus fleet back on the road under a fine of R$1 million (about US$200,000 at 4.97 reais per dollar) an hour, and Kassio Nunes Marques, president of the national electoral court, said requests to extend voting would be analysed in due course (our report).
• 25 October, voting extended: Supreme Court justice Cristiano Zanin ordered polling stations in every state to stay open until 7 p.m. Brasília time (6 p.m. ET) after campaigns reported bus cuts and travel problems, and the electoral court paused its national count with 0.25% of polling sections reported, too early to read. The count resumed after voting closed (our report).
• 25 October, voting machines: the electoral court said 900 voting machines, 0.18% of the 499,248 in use, were replaced between 8 a.m. and noon Brasília time (7 and 11 a.m. ET), according to Agência Brasil, the state news agency (our report).
• 25 October, count resumes: After the polls closed at 7 p.m. Brasília time (6 p.m. ET), the electoral court resumed its national count. At 7:05 p.m. ET the electoral court (TSE) showed Flávio Bolsonaro with 50.46% of valid votes and Lula with 49.54%, with São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Pernambuco and Ceará still largely uncounted; the count is not final (our report, live results).
• 25 October, Lula ahead as the count nears its end: At 9:03 p.m. ET the electoral court showed Lula with 51.78% of valid votes and Flávio Bolsonaro with 48.22%, with 99.98% of polling stations counted and the count not yet marked final (live results, what each side says about the vote).
• 27 October, the real: the dollar closes at R$5.3488, down 1.07%, after Monday’s jump of more than 8% (our report).

Several legal stories touch Flávio’s camp but have produced no charge against him. They include Federal Police e-mails on a bank account linked to a lawyer under investigation, which Flávio denies sharing (our report), and messages indicating a visit to Vorcaro’s home in August 2025, while Flávio says his contacts with the banker concerned the film (our report).

Debates

Lula and Flávio met for the first time on Sunday, 18 October, at the Band debate, one week before the vote; our debate report has the exchanges. Before the first round, Flávio pulled out of TV Globo’s debate on 1 October, citing what he called censorship by the electoral court over its rules, and with Lula also staying away, Globo cancelled it.

• Sunday, 11 October, Record: cancelled by the broadcaster, which cited incompatible schedules.
• Thursday, 15 October, media pool “O Momento da Decisão” (SBT, CNN Brasil, RedeTV!, Metrópoles and seven other outlets): neither candidate had confirmed by 13 October and the organisers have not confirmed a start time, while Lula’s Globo interview falls on the same evening.
• Sunday, 18 October, Band with Estadão: held at 8 p.m. Brasília time (7 p.m. US Eastern) in São Paulo, with both candidates present. It was the first debate of the runoff, with three blocks including 30 minutes of open exchange; Flávio had said on 13 October that he would not go, then reversed on 14 October after Lula said he would attend (our report).
• Friday, 23 October, TV Globo: after the Jornal Nacional evening news, at 9:20 p.m. Brasília time (8:20 p.m. US Eastern), moderated by César Tralli. Both Lula and Flávio took part, Poder360 reported. Flávio apologised on air after calling Lula “nine fingers” (our report). The debate came from the Globo studios in Rio de Janeiro in three blocks: regional themes with the region drawn live, chosen topics, and free topics with closing statements. On 21 October Lula cancelled a TV Record interview and the recording of his campaign TV slots to rest a hoarse voice (our report). A petition asking Globo to fact-check the candidates live in that debate passed 400,000 signatures on 20 October and Lula’s campaign backs it, while the sources we reviewed report no Globo response (our report).
• Interviews: TV Globo interviews each candidate alone after Jornal Nacional, Lula on Thursday, 15 October, and Flávio on Friday, 16 October.

Debates may be held until Friday, 23 October, the last day of free campaign airtime, and paid campaign posts online must stop after Thursday, 22 October. Brasília is one hour ahead of US Eastern Time until US clocks change on 1 November, and our runoff debate guide explains how to watch each debate from the United States.

What Prediction Markets Say

Prediction markets let traders buy contracts that pay US$1 if an outcome happens, so a price of 86 cents implies an 86% chance in the market’s view. Two of them list Brazil’s runoff: Polymarket and Kalshi, the second regulated in the United States by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

On Thursday, 15 October, at about 4 a.m. ET, Polymarket priced Flávio’s chance of winning at 82.8% and Lula’s at 16.5%, with about US$182 million traded across the whole event since it opened. About 12 hours earlier, at about 4 p.m. ET on 14 October, the prices were 85.0% and 14.5%, so the Quaest tie came with a slip of about two points for Flávio. By about 10 a.m. ET on 15 October Polymarket had Flávio at 79.5% and Lula at 20.5%, a further drop of about three points, and to about 75% around midday. At 4:07 p.m. ET the price had recovered to 78.6% for Flávio and 21.5% for Lula, with about US$184 million traded on the event. At 2:40 a.m. ET Kalshi had Flávio at 88% and Lula at 15%.

Traders also bet on the size of the win. Polymarket gives about 45% to a Flávio victory by less than 4 points and about 33% to one by 4 to 8 points, while on Kalshi the most traded band, a Flávio win by 3 to 6 points, last traded at 47% (all at about 4 a.m. ET on 15 October).

• At about 5 a.m. ET on Friday, 16 October, Polymarket priced Flávio’s chance of winning at 77.8% and Lula’s at 22.5%, with about US$184 million traded on the event, a slightly narrower gap than the 79.2% and 20.5% at 2:54 a.m. ET and the 78.6% and 21.5% of the previous afternoon. At about 8 a.m. ET the prices were 78.0% and 22.5%, with about US$184 million traded, so the market was little changed through the morning. At about 11 a.m. ET on Friday, 16 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at 76.2% and Lula at 23.5%, with about US$185 million traded, a slip of about two points for Flávio since the morning, while Kalshi, regulated in the United States by the CFTC, had him at 77% and Lula at 24%. At about 2 p.m. ET on 16 October Polymarket priced Flávio at 76.4% and Lula at 22.5%, with about US$185 million traded, so the market showed no visible move after newspapers reported the betting-firm flights. At about 5 p.m. ET Polymarket had Flávio at 76.3% and Lula at 23.5%, with about US$185 million traded on the event, little changed after the PoderData/Aya, Futura/100% Cidades and CNT/MDA polls put the race at or near a tie.
• At about 2 a.m. ET on Saturday, 17 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at 77.1% and Lula at 23.5%, with about US$185 million traded on the event, little changed through a day of court rulings and Flávio’s Globo interview. At about 4 a.m. ET the price was 76.8% for Flávio and 23.5% for Lula, and at about 8 a.m. ET it was still unchanged at 76.8% and 23.5%. On the margin of victory, Polymarket gave about 40.5% to a Flávio win by less than 4 points and about 28.5% to one by 4 to 8 points. At about 10 a.m. ET on Saturday, 17 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at 76.8% and Lula at 23.5%, with about US$185.3 million traded on the event, unchanged after Datafolha’s swing-voter detail. At about noon ET Polymarket still had Flávio at 76.8% and Lula at 23.5%, with about US$185.3 million traded, so the Ipespe/Abrapel and Veritá polls, which both show a lead of about two points, moved nothing. At about 2 p.m. ET Polymarket priced Flávio at 77.0% and Lula at 23.5%, with about US$185.3 million traded, a fraction higher for Flávio. By about 4 p.m. ET it was unchanged at 77.0% and 23.5%, with about US$185.3 million traded, so no new poll or ruling had moved it by Saturday evening in Brasília.
• At about 3 a.m. ET on Sunday, 18 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at about 81% and Lula at 19.5%, with about US$186.9 million traded on the event, up from 77.0% and 23.5% on Saturday afternoon, with the move coming overnight; we found no ruling or poll that explains the move. At about 4 a.m. ET Polymarket still had Flávio at 81.0% and 19.5% for Lula, with about US$186.9 million traded. At about 6 a.m. ET it priced Flávio at 80.9% and Lula at 19.5%, with about US$187.0 million traded, so the market was little changed ahead of the Band debate at 8 p.m. Brasília time (7 p.m. US Eastern). At about 8 a.m. ET on Sunday, 18 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at 80.8% and Lula at 19.5%, with about US$187.0 million traded, still unchanged within a tenth of a point with the Band debate due that evening.
• At about 10 a.m. ET on Sunday, 18 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at about 81% and Lula at 19.5%, with about US$187.1 million traded across all candidate markets, so the market had not moved after the electoral court let the pro-Lula artist events go ahead. At about noon ET on Sunday, 18 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at about 80% and Lula at 19.5%, with about US$187.1 million traded across all candidate markets, so the market was little changed ahead of the Band debate. At about 2 p.m. ET on Sunday, 18 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at about 80% and Lula at 19.5%, with about US$187.2 million traded across the whole event, so the market was still little changed a few hours before the Band debate. By about 4 p.m. ET Polymarket still had Flávio at about 80% and Lula at 20.5%, with about US$187.3 million traded, hours before the Band debate. At about 6 p.m. ET it priced Flávio at 79.1% and Lula at 20.5%, with about US$187.5 million traded, an hour before the debate and with no visible reaction to the new Vox Brasil poll.
• At about 2 a.m. ET on Monday, 19 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at 78.6% and Lula at 21.5%, with about US$187.8 million traded on the event, little changed after the Band debate. At about 4 a.m. ET the prices were the same, so the fact-check had not moved the market. At about 6 a.m. ET on Monday, 19 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at 77.2% and Lula at 22.5%, with about US$187.9 million traded on the event, so the market was still little moved by the Band debate. At about 8 a.m. ET it priced Flávio at 76.8% and Lula at 22.5%, with about US$188.0 million traded, after the AtlasIntel poll narrowed his lead in the polls.
• At about 10 a.m. ET on Monday, 19 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at 76.8% and Lula at 23.5%, with about US$188.0 million traded on the event, so Flávio’s price was unchanged from 8 a.m. ET while Lula’s rose a point, on the day PoderData put Flávio back at 52%. At about noon ET on Monday, 19 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at 75.8% and Lula at 23.5%, with about US$188.1 million traded on the event, so Flávio’s price slipped a point from 10 a.m. ET on the day the government began paying the raised Bolsa Família benefit. At about 2 p.m. ET on Monday, 19 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at 76.8% and Lula at 23.5%, with about US$188.2 million traded on the event, so Flávio’s price edged up a point from noon ET after the DataTrends and Futura polls showed his lead narrowing. At about 4 p.m. ET on Monday, 19 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at 77.0% and Lula at 23.5%, with about US$188.2 million traded on the event, so Flávio’s price edged up 0.2 points from 2 p.m. ET. At about 6 p.m. ET on Monday, 19 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at 76.8% and Lula at 23.5%, with about US$188.2 million traded on the event, so the market was little moved by Lula’s offer to open his bank and phone records.
• At about 8 a.m. ET on Tuesday, 20 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at 76.6% and Lula at 22.5%, with about US$188.8 million traded on the event, so the market was little moved by the Lula campaign’s Meta complaint and the narrower Nexus and AtlasIntel polls. At about 12 p.m. ET on Tuesday, 20 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at about 77% and Lula at about 22% to win the presidency, with about US$188.9 million traded on the whole event, so the market was little moved by the Real Time Big Data and Alfa Inteligência polls, which both put Flávio ahead. At about 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday, 20 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at 78.0% and Lula at 21.5%, with about US$189.2 million traded on the event, so the market was little moved by the Gerp poll that widened Flávio’s lead to 53% to 47%. At about 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday, 20 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at 78.8% and Lula at 20.5%, with about US$189.3 million traded on the event, so the market was little moved by the França and Data Ranking polls, one on each side of a tie.
• At about 2 a.m. ET on Wednesday, 21 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at 80.0% and Lula at 20.5%, with about US$190.0 million traded on the event. At about 4 a.m. ET on Wednesday, 21 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at 80.3% and Lula at 19.5%, with about US$190.0 million traded on the event, little changed overnight. At about 6 a.m. ET on Wednesday, 21 October, Polymarket priced Flávio at 80.0% and Lula at 20.5%, with about US$190.0 million traded on the event, so the market was unchanged on the morning before the last scheduled debate on Friday, 23 October. By about 8 a.m. ET the same market read 80.2% for Flávio and 19.5% for Lula, with about US$190.1 million traded. At about 10 a.m. ET it read 78.8% for Flávio and 21.5% for Lula, with about US$190.3 million traded, a slip of about one and a half points for Flávio after the Meio/Ideia poll.
• At about 12 p.m. ET it read 78.0% for Flávio and 22.5% for Lula, with about US$190.6 million traded, so the market was little moved by the Quaest, Palver and Futura polls; Kalshi, regulated in the United States by the CFTC, had Flávio at 79%.
• At about 2 p.m. ET it read 78.5% for Flávio and 21.5% for Lula, with about US$190.8 million traded, so the market was little moved by the Veritá poll; Kalshi had Flávio at 79%.
• At about 4 p.m. ET it read 79.0% for Flávio and 21.5% for Lula, with about US$190.9 million traded, so the market was little changed through the afternoon; Kalshi had Flávio at 79%.
• At about 6 p.m. ET it read 80.0% for Flávio and 19.5% for Lula, with about US$191.0 million traded, a small move, with no source tying it to a news event.
• At about 2 a.m. ET on Thursday, 22 October, it read 78.8% for Flávio and 21.5% for Lula, with about US$191.3 million traded, a slip of about one point since the evening; Kalshi, regulated in the United States by the CFTC, had Flávio at 78%.
• At about 4 a.m. ET it read 78.8% for Flávio and 21.5% for Lula, with about US$191.3 million traded, so the market was unchanged through the early morning; Kalshi, regulated in the United States by the CFTC, had Flávio at 79%.
• At about 6 a.m. ET it read 78.6% for Flávio and 21.5% for Lula, with about US$191.3 million traded; Kalshi had Flávio at 79%.
• At about 8 a.m. ET it read 78.1% for Flávio and 21.5% for Lula, with about US$191.3 million traded, on the morning the new PoderData poll was published; Kalshi had Flávio at 79%.
• At about 10 a.m. ET it read 78.0% for Flávio and 21.5% for Lula, with about US$191.6 million traded; Kalshi had Flávio at 79%.
• At about 12 p.m. ET it read 77.6% for Flávio and 22.5% for Lula, with about US$191.6 million traded, so the market was little moved by the Indexa poll (our report); Kalshi had Flávio at 79%.
• At about 2 p.m. ET it read 78.2% for Flávio and 21.5% for Lula, with about US$191.8 million traded, so the market was little moved by the electoral prosecutor’s opinion on Meta (our report); Kalshi had Flávio at 79%.
• At about 4 p.m. ET it read 78.0% for Flávio and 22.5% for Lula, with about US$191.8 million traded, so the market was little changed through the afternoon; Kalshi had Flávio at 79%.
• At about 6 p.m. ET it read 77.5% for Flávio and 22.5% for Lula, with about US$191.9 million traded, so the market was little moved by the court’s order asking Meta for a report on the pro-Lula channel (our report); Kalshi had Flávio at 79%.
• At about 2 a.m. ET on Friday, 23 October, it read 77.2% for Flávio and 22.5% for Lula, with about US$192.3 million traded, little changed from 77.5% at 6 p.m. ET even after the Datafolha poll showed a 50-50 tie (our report); Kalshi, regulated in the United States by the CFTC, had Flávio at 76%, three points below its 79% of the day before.
• At about 10 a.m. ET on Friday, 23 October, it read 76.5% for Flávio and 23.5% for Lula, with about US$192.5 million traded, little changed from 77.2% at 2 a.m. ET after the Real Time Big Data and Vox Brasil polls (Real Time, Vox Brasil); Kalshi, regulated in the United States by the CFTC, had Flávio at 77%.
• At about noon ET on 23 October it read 76.6% for Flávio and 23.5% for Lula, with about US$192.7 million traded, so the market was little moved by the court’s rulings on candidates’ records and on Meta and X (records, Meta and X); Kalshi had Flávio at 76%.
• At about 2 p.m. ET on 23 October it read 76.0% for Flávio and 23.5% for Lula, with about US$192.8 million traded, so the market was little moved by the Ipespe/Abrapel and DataTrends polls (Ipespe/Abrapel, DataTrends); Kalshi still had Flávio at 76%.
• At about 4 p.m. ET on 23 October it read 74.2% for Flávio and 25.5% for Lula, with about US$193.0 million traded, down from the 76.0% we logged at 2 p.m.; Kalshi had Flávio at 76%.
• At about 6 p.m. ET on 23 October it read 76.5% for Flávio and 23.5% for Lula, with about US$193.3 million traded, up from the 74.2% logged at 4 p.m.; Kalshi had Flávio at 76%.
• At about 2 a.m. ET on Saturday, 24 October, it read 79.2% for Flávio and 20.5% for Lula, with about US$194.1 million traded, up about three points from the 76.5% logged at 6 p.m. on Friday; Kalshi’s last price for Flávio was 78%. The leaked Meta files (our report), the Federal District poll (our report) and the tech firms’ reports to the court (our report) came out in the same hours, and we cannot say whether any of them moved the price. At about 4 a.m. ET it read 79.7% for Flávio and 20.5% for Lula, with about US$194.1 million traded, little changed overnight; Kalshi still had him at 78%. At about 6 a.m. ET it read 79.9% for Flávio and 19.5% for Lula, with about US$194.2 million traded, little changed from 4 a.m.; Kalshi had him at 80%. At about noon ET it read 82.8% for Flávio and 17.5% for Lula, with about US$194.8 million traded, up about three points from the early morning, and Kalshi had him at 84%; we found no new national poll in our tracker since the Veritá survey of 23 October.
• At about 2 p.m. ET on Saturday, 24 October, Polymarket read 83.7% for Flávio and 16.5% for Lula, with about US$195.0 million traded on the event, up from 82.8% at noon and 76.5% at 6 p.m. on Friday; Kalshi had Flávio at 84% and Lula at 18%. These are bets, not polls (our report).
• At about 4 p.m. ET on Saturday, 24 October, Polymarket read 83.7% for Flávio and 16.5% for Lula, with about US$195.1 million traded on the event, unchanged from 2 p.m.; Kalshi had Flávio at 83% and Lula at 18%.
• At about 3 a.m. ET on Sunday, 25 October, Polymarket read 79.9% for Flávio and 20.5% for Lula, with about US$197.0 million traded on the event; Kalshi had Flávio at 81% and Lula at 20%.
• At about 5 a.m. ET on Sunday, 25 October, Polymarket read 79.8% for Flávio and 20.5% for Lula, with about US$197.1 million traded on the event, little changed from 3 a.m.; Kalshi still had Flávio at 81% and Lula at 20%.
• At about 9 a.m. ET on Sunday, 25 October, Polymarket read 79.1% for Flávio and 20.5% for Lula, with about US$197.6 million traded on the event, little changed from 7 a.m.; Kalshi had Flávio at 80% and Lula at 20%.
• At about 11 a.m. ET on Sunday, 25 October, Polymarket read 79.0% for Flávio and 20.5% for Lula, with about US$198.0 million traded on the event, little changed from 9 a.m.; Kalshi had Flávio at 79%.
• At about 1 p.m. ET on Sunday, 25 October, Polymarket read 81.3% for Flávio and 18.5% for Lula, with about US$198.5 million traded on the event, up from about 79% at 11 a.m.; Kalshi had Flávio at 82%.
• At about 3 p.m. ET on Sunday, 25 October, Polymarket read 77.5% for Flávio and 22.5% for Lula, with about US$199.3 million traded on the event, down from 81.3% at 1 p.m.; Kalshi had Flávio at 78%.
• At 5 p.m. ET on Sunday, 25 October, Polymarket read 66.0% for Flávio and 34.5% for Lula, with about US$201.2 million traded on the event, down from 77.5% at 3 p.m. in the hours when the Supreme Court extended voting and the electoral court paused its count (our report); we cannot say whether that moved the price. Kalshi had Flávio at 69% and Lula at 32%.
• At 7:05 p.m. ET on Sunday, 25 October, Polymarket read 83.5% for Lula and 16.7% for Flávio, with about US$211.9 million traded on the event, a swing of about 49 points for Flávio in two hours as the electoral court’s count came in (our report); we cannot say what moved the price.

Flávio traded between about 64% and 89% on Polymarket from 5 October until the count began, a far wider edge than his lead in the polls, and then fell to 16.7% on the evening of the vote. Prices show where money is placed, not how people will vote, and a favourite at 83% still loses about one time in six.

Traders also bet on the size of the win. At about 10 a.m. ET on 23 October, Kalshi priced a Flávio win by 3 to 6 points at 36% and one by under 3 points at 41%, while Polymarket gave 44.0% to a Flávio win by under 4 points and 30.0% to one by 4 to 8 points (our report on the margin bets).

Brazilians cannot legally trade these contracts, because Resolution 5.298 of the National Monetary Council has banned derivatives on elections since 4 May 2026 and the telecom regulator Anatel has blocked both platforms. How the odds moved through the campaign is in our report What Prediction Markets Say About Brazil’s Runoff.

What the Brazil Election 2026 Means for US Readers and Investors

Whoever wins will face a Congress in which the Liberal Party (PL) holds the biggest bench in both chambers, 121 of 513 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 28 of 81 in the Senate once senators with unexpired terms are counted, so neither candidate controls either house. Changing the Constitution needs three-fifths of each house, 308 deputies and 49 senators, which is why the winner must bargain with the Centrão, the loose bloc of centre-right parties that trade votes for budget and cabinet posts (our report).

For US investors, the runoff is the year’s main event for Brazilian assets. The Ibovespa, São Paulo’s benchmark index, closed at a record 209,066.90 points on Friday, 9 October, about 8.8% above its last close before the first round, and the iShares MSCI Brazil ETF (EWZ) rose 14.0% in New York over the same week (our report).

The real strengthened from R$5.2238 per US dollar on 2 October to R$4.9892 on 9 October on the central bank’s PTAX reference rate, before easing to R$5.0096 on 13 October. That Tuesday the Ibovespa fell 1.04% to 206,887.52 points in its first session after a holiday, a fall the business site InfoMoney linked to caution at home and abroad (our market report).

On Thursday, 22 October, the Ibovespa fell 1.15% to 204,120 points, about 2.4% below that record, and the real weakened to about R$5.04 per US dollar. Our market report on that session has the full picture.

On Friday, 23 October, the last trading day before the vote, the IPCA-15 inflation preview rose 0.32%, below the 0.43% economists expected, and 4.62% over 12 months (our report). The Ibovespa then rose 0.47% to 205,082.56 points and the dollar closed below R$5 (our market report).

On Monday, 26 October, Brazil’s central bank published its weekly Focus survey of more than 100 banks and investment funds. Economists put the dollar at R$5.05 (Brazilian reais) at the end of 2026, but they answered on Friday, 23 October, before the runoff, and the real had weakened to about R$5.40 per US dollar by midday Monday (our report).

Analysts quoted in Brazil’s financial press expect a Flávio win to lock in part of the rally and a Lula win to reverse some of it. Diogo Velho Barreto of Pequod Investimentos told Movimento Econômico that a Lula victory would likely bring higher interest-rate futures, pressure on the real and a correction in shares, while Goldman Sachs economists said the question that weighs most is who would run the Finance Ministry.

• Holders of American depositary receipts in companies such as Petrobras, Vale and Itaú Unibanco feel that risk twice, through the share price in São Paulo and through the currency. Brazilian markets are closed on Sunday, so the first reaction comes on Monday, 26 October, and the central bank’s rate committee, which holds the Selic benchmark rate at 13.75%, decides next on 4 November (what the runoff means for US investors).
• Trade with Washington is the second link. An extra 25% US tariff has applied to most Brazilian goods since 22 July 2026 under Section 301 of US trade law, with exemptions for items such as civil aircraft, energy products and coffee, and the winner will set Brazil’s line in any talks.
• Security is the third, because Washington has listed two of Brazil’s biggest gangs as terrorist organisations and Flávio wants Brazil inside the US-led Shield of the Americas. Lula’s plan instead stresses sovereignty and trade diversification after what it calls repeated waves of US tariffs.

Whoever wins must govern with the fragmented Congress elected on 4 October. Flávio’s Liberal Party won 121 of the 513 Chamber seats, the largest group, and the parties that formally back him won 259, two above a majority but short of the 308 needed to amend the constitution, while Lula’s PT federation won 88 (our Congress report).

For the 265,437 Brazilians registered to vote in the United States, voting takes place at consulates on 25 October, with Boston, Miami and New York among the largest polling cities. Americans living in Brazil cannot vote, and daily life goes on as normal, though schools used as polling stations draw crowds and some states restrict alcohol sales on voting day.

What Is Not Known

• Who wins: the count resumed after voting closed and is not final, and only the electoral court declares the winner. Also how many voters were kept from the polls by bus cuts and travel problems before the nationwide extension to 7 p.m. Brasília time; no court has tested the bus claims.
• Whether the polls are closer to the result than in the first round, and whether the last surveys before the vote keep the race level, as Datafolha found on 22 October.
• How the roughly 9 million voters of the eliminated candidates and the more than 33 million who stayed home on 4 October will act.
• Whether the Globo debate on 23 October, which both campaigns have confirmed, moves any votes, because Datafolha’s interviews ended on 22 October, before it.
• Whether the courts order Meta to restore the accounts and posts that prosecutors and the newspaper Estadão say it restricted, and whether the judge accepts Meta’s explanation, and whether the Messias AI video case ends in a fine.
• Whether the full electoral court upholds the order over the fake drug video, and how the “Exército do Lula” channel behaves once it can post again.
• Whether the TSE approves the Rio request for federal troops, and in which of the 15 cities they would operate.
• Whether the Senate passes the end of the six-day work week and the security amendment before the vote.
• Datafolha, final poll (released 24 October; registered with the TSE): Flávio 51%, Lula 49% of valid votes, the last survey from the pollster that missed the first round.
• Who would run the Finance Ministry under either winner, with Adolfo Sachsida tipped for a Flávio government but nobody named, and whether the market rally since 5 October holds.

Related reading: Brazil Runoff Results Start 17:00 Brasília Time; Brazil Runoff Odds on Polymarket and Kalshi; What Brazil’s Runoff Means for US Investors; Brazil Runoff Polls 2026: Every Lula vs Flávio Survey; Lula vs Flávio Bolsonaro on the Issues; Brazil Runoff Debates: Dates, Channels and Who Shows Up; Michelle Bolsonaro: Age, Senate Win and Family; Brazil Runoff Day for Foreign Visitors; all our Brazil Elections 2026 coverage.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is the Brazil runoff in 2026?

Brazil’s presidential runoff is on Sunday, 25 October 2026, between President Lula and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro. Polls opened at 8 a.m. Brasília time and were due to close at 5 p.m. (7 a.m. to 4 p.m. US Eastern), but a Supreme Court order extended voting to 7 p.m. Brasília time (6 p.m. US Eastern).

Who is ahead in the polls?

Flávio Bolsonaro leads in forty of the forty-six runoff polls in our tracker, and our average of each pollster’s latest survey gives him 51.0% of valid votes to Lula’s 49.0%. Datafolha’s final poll, on 24 October, has him at 51% to 49%.

Who will win the Brazil election?

Lula won with 51.79% of valid votes against Flávio Bolsonaro’s 48.21%, a lead of 4,430,191 votes, with every polling section counted.

What time are the Brazil runoff results?

The electoral court (TSE) paused its count while voting was extended to 7 p.m. Brasília time (6 p.m. ET) and resumed it after the polls closed. Every polling section was counted late on Sunday night, with Lula at 51.79% and Flávio at 48.21%.

Did Trump say the Brazil election was rigged?

Yes. On 26 October Trump said the runoff “looked like another rigged election” but gave no evidence. Brazil’s Vice President Geraldo Alckmin called it “totally mistaken”. Flávio Bolsonaro has not conceded, but his Liberal Party recognised Lula’s win.

Is Flávio Bolsonaro conceding?

No. Flávio Bolsonaro said on Sunday night that he cannot recognise the result and will ask courts to annul it, but his Liberal Party recognised Lula’s win on 26 October.

Can Brazilians abroad vote in the runoff?

Yes, but only for president, at embassies and consulates during local hours that generally run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The electoral court counts 918,876 voters registered abroad, including 265,437 in the United States, while foreigners living in Brazil cannot vote.

Is voting compulsory in Brazil?

Yes, for literate citizens aged 18 to 70, while it is optional for 16- and 17-year-olds, people over 70 and those who cannot read. A voter who misses a round without a valid excuse pays a small fine, usually R$3.51 (about US$0.70).

What happens if there is a tie?

An exact tie among more than 100 million valid votes is all but impossible, since the winner needs only one vote more than the rival. If it did happen, Brazilian electoral law gives the post to the older candidate, which would be Lula, born in 1945.

When does the winner take office?

The winner is sworn in on Tuesday, 5 January 2027, for a four-year term. A 2021 constitutional amendment moved the date from 1 January, and new governors take office on 6 January.

Sources: TSE official results and the TSE election calendar; TSE registry of election polls (PesqEle) for each survey listed, with releases reported by Poder360, O Povo, Exame, Gazeta do Povo and Metrópoles; the candidates’ government plans filed with the TSE, summarised by Agência Brasil, Congresso em Foco, Estado de Minas and Folha de S.Paulo; broadcasters’ announcements for the debates via Poder360, O Povo and Exame; Quaest poll reports in InfoMoney and Metrópoles; Polymarket and Kalshi public market data (14 October, 2:40 a.m. ET; Polymarket again on 15 October, 4:05 a.m. ET); Banco Central do Brasil PTAX rates; B3 market data; Constitutional Amendment 111/2021; USTR Section 301 action on Brazil (Federal Register, July 2026). As of 25 October 2026. Also: Datafolha final runoff poll (24 October), reported by Diário do Nordeste; Polymarket and Kalshi public market data (25 October, about 3 a.m. ET); Datafolha runoff poll BR-09709/2026 (22 October), reported by Exame and CNN Brasil; B3 Ibovespa and real close for 22 October; Datafolha runoff poll BR-00466/2026 (15 October); Agência Senado (15 October); Agência Brasil (15 October); InfoMoney (14 October); Metrópoles (15 October); Exame (15 October).

More: Brazil news in English, every day from The Rio Times.