Brazilians headed to the polls on Sunday, 25 October, to decide one of the closest presidential elections in the country’s modern history, with right-wing challenger Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, seeking to unseat Socialist incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
After casting his ballot in Rio de Janeiro, Bolsonaro declared that ‘the time of real change has arrived’, and polling data increasingly points in that direction, although the majority of surveys anticipate a razor-thin race in the runoff.
Global Election Simulator (GES), whose projections have attracted considerable attention throughout the campaign, is among those expecting a more decisive outcome. Its final projection puts Bolsonaro at 52.3 per cent of valid votes, or 61,120,006 ballots, against Lula’s 47.7 per cent, or 55,839,688 votes. The model anticipates a victory margin of approximately 5.3 million votes, claims a margin of error of one percentage point and has gone as far as assigning Bolsonaro a 100 per cent probability of winning.
Its detailed projections provide further insight into how such a victory could materialize. GES expects Bolsonaro to secure 66.4 per cent in the South, 64 per cent in the Centre-West, 57.5 per cent in the Southeast and 53.7 per cent in the North. Lula, meanwhile, is projected to dominate the Northeast with 66.2 per cent. The simulator also estimates Bolsonaro’s support at 60.9 per cent in predominantly white areas, while Lula leads in predominantly mixed-race, black and indigenous areas.
GES has also published an election-night counting simulation, anticipating Bolsonaro opening with approximately 58.4 per cent when 10 per cent of votes have been counted, declining to 56.6 per cent at the 25 per cent mark and eventually settling at 52.3 per cent.
‘The simulator had already demonstrated an interesting degree of accuracy in the first round’
The simulator had already demonstrated an interesting degree of accuracy in the first round. A widely circulated GES projection showed Bolsonaro leading Lula by 45.4 to 44.3 per cent ahead of the 4 October vote. The eventual result was 47.03 to 45.16 per cent, meaning the simulation correctly anticipated the finishing order and came within two percentage points of both candidates’ final shares.
Traditional polling nevertheless points in the same direction, although with narrower margins. Final Datafolha figures put Bolsonaro ahead by 51 to 49 per cent, while CNT/MDA recorded 50.7 to 49.3 per cent, both statistically tied. However, Datafolha’s turnout analysis gives Bolsonaro a 52–48 advantage among respondents most likely to vote, while BTG/Nexus’s likely-voter model estimates 52.4 to 47.6 per cent, remarkably close to GES’s projection.
Bolsonaro upset Lula in the first round by more than 2.2 million votes, outperforming conventional polls and demonstrating the enduring strength of Brazil’s conservative electorate. His party, the Liberal Party, also won a landslide in the legislative elections, meaning that a potential Bolsonaro victory would allow for uninterrupted implementation of its programme.
After the reality check of the first round, Lula managed to narrow the gap through an aggressive campaign overhaul, relying mainly on his incumbent advantage and the powers of government. The Socialist administration increased Bolsa Família welfare payments by 15 per cent, advanced a shorter working week and announced debt-relief programmes and fuel subsidies, all within the space of less than a month.
The president also intensified his attacks on Bolsonaro, adopting what his own campaign described as a ‘fear strategy’ aimed at convincing poorer voters that a conservative victory would threaten welfare benefits, pensions and public healthcare.
‘Lula managed to narrow the gap through an aggressive campaign overhaul’
The election also carries significant geopolitical implications for Latin America, where a series of right-wing victories has steadily reversed the leftist ‘pink tide’ of the early 2020s. Since Jair Bolsonaro’s defeat in 2022, conservatives have taken power in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru and several other countries, driven by demands for tougher security policies, market-oriented economic reforms and closer alignment with Donald Trump’s Washington.
Flávio Bolsonaro, whose family maintains longstanding ties with Trump and the MAGA movement, has openly advocated strengthening relations with the United States, while Lula has sought to portray Washington’s tariffs as an assault on Brazilian sovereignty. A conservative victory in Brazil, the region’s largest economy and most populous country, would give this broader political realignment far greater geopolitical weight.
Related articles:
The post How Flávio Bolsonaro Could Win Brazil’s Razor-Thin Presidential Runoff appeared first on Hungarian Conservative.