BRAZIL · ELECTIONS · POLLS
Key Facts
- The country Brazil elects its president in a runoff on Sunday 25 October between President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the left-wing Workers’ Party (PT) and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro of the conservative Liberal Party (PL).
- Why it matters Polls are the main hard numbers before the vote, and three national polls published on Monday morning put the conservative candidate narrowly ahead.
- Why now The electoral court’s poll registry lists surveys for release on every day from Tuesday 20 to Saturday 24 October, the day before the vote.
- What happened On the morning of Monday 19 October, BTG/Nexus, AtlasIntel and PoderData/Aya put Flávio Bolsonaro ahead with 50.3%, 51.1% and 52% of valid votes.
- The calendar Real Time Big Data is listed for Tuesday, Quaest and Meio/Ideia for Wednesday, Datafolha and PoderData for Thursday, and final Datafolha, Quaest, Nexus and AtlasIntel surveys for Saturday.
- The rule Every poll must be registered with the court at least five days before release, and each one carries a BR registration number that can be checked in the court’s open data.
- Prediction markets Polymarket prices a Flávio Bolsonaro win at 75.9% and a Lula win at 23.5% (19 October, 7:55 p.m. ET). Polymarket puts Flávio Bolsonaro’s chance of winning at 76% and Kalshi at 79% (Lula: 24% and 21%), as of 19 October, 8:20 pm ET; prices are bets, not polls.
- Power Index Brazil ranks 1st of 14 in The Rio Times Latin America Power Index, with 75.0 points (October 2026 edition).
- Still open How the Sunday 18 October debate and the Friday 23 October debate move voters will only show in the later polls.
Runoff · Sunday, 25 October
Brazil Runoff 2026: Lula vs Flávio
Date, polls, debates, odds and how the runoff works, updated every day.
Brazil election 2026 · Brazil election polls · Brazil election odds · Brazil runoff date and results start · Brazil election results · All election stories
Brazil’s electoral court has registered new presidential polls for release on every day from Tuesday 20 October to Saturday 24 October, the day before the runoff on Sunday 25 October. The court’s public poll registry, as it stood at 2:22 p.m. in Brasília (1:22 p.m. Eastern) on Monday 19 October, lists 69 registrations for the presidential race with release dates in that window, some of them covering a single state.
For readers in the United States, the calendar shows when the next hard numbers on a near-tied race will arrive, which matters to anyone who holds Brazilian assets, does business there or has family in the country. Three polls published on Monday morning put Flávio Bolsonaro, the conservative candidate, narrowly ahead of President Lula in valid votes, according to the Brazilian news portal Terra.
The Three Polls Published on Monday Morning
BTG/Nexus, a phone poll of 2,002 voters fielded from 16 to 18 October, has Flávio at 50.3% and Lula at 49.7% of valid votes, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points (registration BR-04499/2026). AtlasIntel, an online survey for Bloomberg of 4,998 voters fielded from 13 to 18 October, has Flávio at 51.1% and Lula at 48.9%, with a margin of 1 point (BR-02418/2026).
PoderData/Aya, a phone poll of 3,000 voters in 695 municipalities fielded from 16 to 18 October, has Flávio at 52% and Lula at 48%, with a margin of 1.8 points (BR-02586/2026). Terra reports that all three polls were fielded before the first runoff debate on Sunday 18 October, so none of them can show what voters made of it.
Two of the three show Lula gaining on the same pollster’s previous wave: he had 48.4% in Nexus on 13 October and 47.2% in AtlasIntel on 9 October, against 49.7% and 48.9% now. PoderData moved the other way, from a 50% to 50% tie on 16 October to a 52% to 48% Flávio lead.
The Poll Calendar From Tuesday to Saturday
The court’s registry defines the release date as the date from which a company may publish a result, so each pollster still chooses the hour. Sample sizes and field dates below are the plans filed with the court, and the final counts can differ slightly.
Tuesday 20 October
Real Time Big Data is listed for the day (BR-02952/2026), with 2,000 interviews by phone and online from 15 to 19 October and a margin of about 2 points. Several smaller firms are also listed that day, some of them for single states.
Wednesday 21 October
Quaest is listed (BR-08535/2026), with 2,154 in-person interviews in homes from 17 to 20 October, a margin of about 2 points and a registered cost of R$338,178 (about US$66,800). Terra says the Globo media group commissioned it.
Meio/Ideia is also listed for Wednesday (BR-08251/2026), with 1,500 phone interviews from 15 to 19 October, commissioned by the news channel Meio according to Terra. Together with Real Time Big Data on Tuesday, these are the polls named in Terra’s own schedule for the week after Monday’s releases.
Thursday 22 October
Datafolha, the pollster Folha de S.Paulo used for its last runoff poll, is listed (BR-09709/2026), with 2,520 in-person interviews planned from 20 to 22 October and a registered cost of R$384,552 (about US$76,000). Its last published poll, fielded on 13 and 14 October, had Flávio at 47% and Lula at 45% of all respondents, or 51% to 49% in valid votes.
PoderData, which published the 52% to 48% result on Monday, is listed again for Thursday (BR-07926/2026), with 4,000 automated phone interviews planned from 19 to 21 October. The larger sample than Monday’s 3,000 narrows its planned margin from 1.8 to 1.6 points.
Friday 23 October
Ipespe/Abrapel is listed (BR-04350/2026) with 1,500 phone interviews planned from 20 to 22 October, Vox Brasil (BR-03259/2026) with 2,100 in-person interviews, and Real Time Big Data with a second survey (BR-09670/2026). Globo’s debate between Lula and Flávio is set for the same evening after the Jornal Nacional news, according to Terra, so the three Friday surveys named here finish fieldwork before it.
Saturday 24 October
The last full day before the vote is the busiest on the list, with Datafolha registering a 4,050-interview poll (BR-09540/2026) fielded on 23 and 24 October at a cost of R$461,462 (about US$91,100). Quaest lists 3,702 interviews for the same two days (BR-09158/2026) at R$570,108 (about US$112,600).
Nexus lists 2,000 phone interviews (BR-08234/2026) for 23 and 24 October, and AtlasIntel has several registrations, including a 5,000-person online survey (BR-06380/2026) fielded from 18 to 23 October. MDA lists 2,002 in-person interviews (BR-02136/2026) from 21 to 23 October.
How to Read the Numbers
Brazil’s constitution decides the runoff on valid votes, which leave out blank and spoiled ballots, so pollsters publish two sets of numbers. Datafolha’s last poll shows the gap: Flávio led 47% to 45% among all respondents, but 51% to 49% in valid votes.
A gap smaller than the margin of error is called a technical tie, which is how Terra describes the 50.3% to 49.7% BTG/Nexus result and its 2-point margin. Registered costs in the window vary widely, from R$12,000 (about US$2,400) for the smallest to R$570,108 (about US$112,600) for Quaest’s final poll, so method and price differ as much as the firms do.
How to Check a Poll
Brazil’s Elections Law (Law 9.504 of 30 September 1997, article 33) requires every pollster to register each election poll with the electoral court at least five days before publication, disclosing who commissioned it, who paid, the method, the sample plan, the margin of error and the full questionnaire. Publishing a poll without registration carries a fine, and publishing a fraudulent poll is a crime punishable by six months to a year in detention plus a fine.
Each registration gets a number in the form BR-00000/2026, and the court publishes the registry as open data that anyone can download, which is how we checked the dates, sample sizes and costs in this article. A poll that quotes no BR number, or whose number cannot be found in the file, has not shown that it was registered.
What It Means for You
If you hold Brazilian stocks, bonds, a Brazil-focused fund or the real, the calendar above is the list of scheduled news before the vote, with Saturday’s final surveys the last major reading. Our runoff poll tracker lists each new survey as it is published.
The numbers are close enough that polls with different methods can disagree, so check the BR number and the method line before you share a headline. The runoff itself is on Sunday 25 October, and our voting-day guide explains how the day works.
What Prediction Markets Say
On Polymarket, an online prediction market, bettors price a Flávio Bolsonaro win in the 25 October runoff at 75.9% and a Lula win at 23.5% (19 October, 7:55 p.m. ET). The “Brazil Presidential Election” event has drawn about US$188.3 million in total trading, and over the past 24 hours Flávio’s price fell about 3 points and Lula’s rose 3 points.
These are bets, not polls, and a price of 76 cents reads as roughly a 76% chance. A separate Polymarket market on the runoff’s margin of victory has drawn about US$3.0 million.
Prediction markets · who wins the runoff
Implied chance of winning Brazil’s presidency on 25 October, from traders’ prices.
Polymarket
Flávio Bolsonaro 76.3% · Lula 23.5% (US$188 million traded)
Kalshi (regulated in the US by the CFTC)
Flávio Bolsonaro 79% · Lula 21%
As of 19 October, 8:20 pm ET (01:20 Lisbon), updated every 20 minutes. Prices are bets, not polls, and can move fast.
Why we show this: prediction markets turn real-money bets into a live probability that moves within minutes of the news, which is why investors, campaigns and newsrooms in the United States now follow them closely. We show them next to polls and official results, never instead of them.
Why we show this: prediction markets turn real-money bets into a live probability that moves within minutes of the news, which is why investors, campaigns and newsrooms in the United States now follow them closely. We show them next to polls and official results, never instead of them.
What Is Not Known
The registry lists the earliest day each poll may be published, not the hour, and the open-data file shows the pollster and the cost but not who paid. We name a commissioner only where Terra does, and the list is a snapshot from 2:22 p.m. in Brasília on Monday 19 October, so more registrations can still appear for the last days and other firms listed for Monday are not covered here.
It is not known how the Band debate on Sunday 18 October or Globo’s debate on Friday 23 October will move voters, because the Monday morning polls were fielded before the first of them. Nor is it known whether the later polls will agree, since the three surveys published on Monday morning already differ by 1.7 points in Flávio’s share of valid votes.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is the next Brazil runoff poll?
Real Time Big Data is listed for Tuesday 20 October, followed by Quaest and Meio/Ideia on Wednesday 21 October. Datafolha and PoderData are listed for Thursday 22 October.
When do the last polls come out before the vote?
Datafolha, Quaest, Nexus and AtlasIntel are all listed for Saturday 24 October, the day before the runoff. Brazil votes on Sunday 25 October.
Who is leading the runoff polls?
On the morning of Monday 19 October, BTG/Nexus, AtlasIntel and PoderData/Aya all put Flávio Bolsonaro narrowly ahead among valid votes, with 50.3%, 51.1% and 52%. Terra calls only the BTG/Nexus result a technical tie.
What does the BR number on a poll mean?
It is the registration number the electoral court gives each poll, in the form BR-00000/2026, and the poll must be filed at least five days before publication. It shows the poll was registered, not that it is accurate.
Where can I look up a poll’s registration?
The electoral court publishes its poll registry as open data at dadosabertos.tse.jus.br, where the 2026 file lists every registration with its dates, sample size and cost. Search the file for the BR number printed on the poll.
Sources: Superior Electoral Court (TSE), open-data poll registry 2026 (file generated 19 October 2026, 2:22 p.m. Brasília; download), Law 9.504 of 1997, article 33, Federal Constitution, article 77, Datafolha, runoff poll BR-00466/2026, 16 October 2026, Terra, poll schedule, Terra, Monday polls, Terra, Globo debate, Terra, Band debate, SBT News, AtlasIntel poll, SBT News, PoderData poll, Tribuna de Jundiaí, Nexus/BTG poll, Polymarket. Real-to-dollar conversions use the 16 October 2026 close of R$5.0627 per US dollar, our house rate. All retrieved 19 October 2026.
Editorial responsibility: Matthias Camenzind, Editor-in-Chief · Editorial standards · Report an error