Renan Calheiros Loses Brazil Senate Seat Held Since 1995
BRAZIL · ELECTIONS 2026
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Key Facts
- —The country Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy, voted on Sunday 4 October for president, both houses of Congress and state governors.
- —The background In Alagoas, a small north-eastern state with 2.44 million voters, the Calheiros family has headed one of the main political groups for decades.
- —Why it matters Renan Calheiros, 71, has sat in the Senate since 1995 and was elected its president four times, making him one of Brazil’s best-known politicians.
- —What happened He finished third behind Arthur Lira and Marina JHC, who won the state’s two Senate seats in the final count.
- —The numbers Lira won 28.87%, Marina JHC 28.20% and Calheiros 22.2%. His son Renan Filho separately lost the governor’s race, 47.37% to 52.20%.
- —What it means for you For anyone following the 25 October runoff, it shows Lula’s allies losing even in a state Lula himself carried.
- —Still open The family stays in Congress: Renan Filho keeps the Senate seat he won in 2022, and that term runs until 2031.
Renan Calheiros, a four-time president of Brazil’s Senate, lost his seat in the north-eastern state of Alagoas on Sunday 4 October. He finished third in the race for the state’s two Senate seats, with 22.2% of the vote.
On the same ballot, his son Renan Filho lost a separate race for governor of Alagoas. The double defeat breaks the Calheiros group’s long run of wins, though the son keeps his own Senate seat until 2031.
Lira and Marina JHC Take Both Alagoas Seats
Alagoas, like every Brazilian state, elected two of its three senators this year, so each voter could pick two names. Arthur Lira of the centre-right Progressistas party topped the poll with about 947,000 votes, or 28.87%.
Marina JHC of the PSDB, another centre-right party, took the second seat with about 925,000 votes, or 28.20%. Renan Calheiros of the centrist MDB received about 730,000 votes, about 195,000 fewer than her.
These are the final figures from the TSE, Brazil’s electoral court, with all 7,101 polling sections in the state counted. Turnout in Alagoas was 79.36%.
The Calheiros alliance, which included Lula’s Workers’ Party, also fielded Dr. Wanderley of the MDB, who drew 10.91%. Officially, Lula backed both men for the two seats, O Globo reported.
Calheiros is not the only veteran to fall. Randolfe Rodrigues, Lula’s government leader in Congress, lost in Amapá, CartaCapital reported.
Ciro Nogueira, national head of the Progressistas, lost in Piauí. Nationally, Flávio Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party was ahead for 19 of the 54 seats in the Senate results published on 4 October.
A Career That Began in 1979
Calheiros sat in the Alagoas state assembly from 1979 and in the Chamber of Deputies, Brazil’s lower house, from 1983 to 1991. He helped write the 1988 Constitution, which followed two decades of military rule.
In 1990 he was President Fernando Collor’s government leader in the lower house, Folha de S.Paulo recalled. He was first elected to the Senate in 1994 and took his seat the following year.
He served as justice minister under President Fernando Henrique Cardoso in 1998 and 1999. His colleagues elected him Senate president in 2005, 2007, 2013 and 2015.
He resigned the presidency in 2007 after months of ethics complaints; the Senate later cleared him, Folha noted. In 2021 he was rapporteur of the Senate inquiry into the Bolsonaro government’s handling of Covid-19.
That inquiry recommended charges against Jair Bolsonaro, then president, CNN Brasil noted. When his term ends in early 2027, Renan Calheiros will be out of Congress for the first time since 1995.
His Son Lost a Separate Race for Governor
The governor’s race was a different contest on the same ballot. João Henrique Caldas, a former mayor of Maceió known as JHC, won outright with 892,484 votes, or 52.20%.
Renan Filho, Lula’s transport minister until April, took 809,796 votes, or 47.37%. Because JHC passed half of the valid votes, Alagoas will not hold a runoff for governor.
On election morning, his father had forecast a far wider margin. Renan Calheiros told GazetaWeb he expected his son to win “by a difference of around 10% of the votes”.
JHC won instead by 82,688 votes, a gap of under five percentage points. Renan Filho governed Alagoas from 2015 to 2022, after two terms as mayor of his home town, Murici.
He was elected to the Senate in 2022, and Rádio Senado, the Senate’s broadcaster, notes that his term runs until 2031. So the defeat costs the family the governorship it wanted, not its presence in Brasília.
JHC was among the governors elected outright on Sunday. Races in the three largest states are covered in the governor results for São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais.
The Rival Clans Behind the Upset
Both winners belong to the Calheiros family’s main rivals in Alagoas. InfoMoney called Lira a historic adversary of the Calheiros, and Estadão called him the senator’s arch-rival.
This was also the first time Lira and Renan Calheiros faced each other directly at the ballot box, O Globo noted. Lira, 57, has been a federal deputy since 2011 and presided over the lower house from 2021 to 2025.
His son Alvinho Lira, 20, was the most-voted federal deputy in Alagoas, with 172,628 votes, according to the TSE count.
Marina JHC, 35, is JHC’s wife, a businesswoman and Maceió’s first lady from 2021 to 2026, according to Rádio Senado. Hours before the registration deadline, JHC chose the governor’s race and put her forward for the Senate, O Globo reported.
She told Rádio Senado she had fought “until the end of this election campaign” so that women could have more space. JHC’s coalition included Flávio Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party and Lira’s Progressistas.
Lula Won Alagoas, but His Allies Lost
The result is a setback for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who carried Alagoas comfortably. He took 54.73% there against 40.45% for Flávio Bolsonaro, according to the TSE.
Lula travelled to Maceió at the end of September to campaign beside the Calheiros family, O Globo reported. Flávio Bolsonaro backed JHC for governor, InfoMoney reported.
Lula won 995,459 votes in Alagoas, about 186,000 more than Renan Filho drew in the governor’s race. The gap suggests that many Lula voters did not back his candidate for governor.
Lula also kept a channel open to Lira, whom he does not treat as an opponent, O Globo reported. Lula’s allies contacted Lira before the Maceió trip to assure him there would be no attacks.
What the Defeat Does Not Mean
It does not take effect at once. Renan Calheiros serves out his current Senate term until early 2027.
In September he called the 2023 settlement between Maceió and Braskem over sinking neighbourhoods “criminal”, blaming JHC, who signed it as mayor. He still chairs the Senate’s economic affairs committee, which has invited the heads of Braskem’s owners to a hearing.
Nor does Alagoas settle the presidency. Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro meet in a runoff on 25 October, and Alagoas is a small share of the national electorate.
What Comes Next
The new senators and the new governor take office in early 2027. On 25 October, Alagoas votes again, this time only for president.
For residents and investors, the change brings a governor who, as mayor, signed the Braskem settlement that Calheiros attacked. JHC will govern with Célia Rocha, a doctor and former mayor of Arapiraca, as his deputy.
For the Calheiros family, the next statewide test comes in 2030, when Alagoas elects its next governor. Until then, Renan Filho’s Senate seat keeps the family in national politics.
More: Latin America news in English, every day from The Rio Times.
Who is Renan Calheiros?
Renan Calheiros is a senator for Alagoas from the centrist MDB, in the Senate since 1995. He was elected Senate president four times and was justice minister in 1998 and 1999. He lost his bid for a fifth term on 4 October 2026.
Who won the two Senate seats in Alagoas?
Arthur Lira of the Progressistas won 28.87% and Marina JHC of the PSDB won 28.20%, according to the TSE’s final count. Renan Calheiros came third with 22.2%.
Did Renan Filho lose his Senate seat too?
No. Renan Filho lost the governor’s race to JHC, by 47.37% to 52.20%. His Senate term, won in 2022, runs until 2031.
Does this change the presidential runoff?
Not directly. Lula won Alagoas with 54.73% of the vote, and he faces Flávio Bolsonaro nationally on 25 October. The defeat of Renan Calheiros costs Lula an experienced ally in the next Senate.
Sources: TSE, official results (Alagoas Senate), 4 October 2026; TSE, official results (Alagoas governor), 4 October 2026; TSE, official results (president, Alagoas), 5 October 2026; Poder360, 5 October 2026; Folha de S.Paulo, 4 October 2026; O Globo, 4 October 2026; Rádio Senado, 4 October 2026; CNN Brasil, 5 October 2026; Estadão, 5 October 2026; InfoMoney, 5 October 2026; CartaCapital, 5 October 2026; GazetaWeb, 4 October 2026.
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error · Editorial responsibility: Matthias Camenzind, Editor-in-Chief