Senator Flávio Bolsonaro's lead over President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has narrowed to a statistical tie ahead of Sunday's presidential runoff in Brazil, while President Donald Trump, Bolsonaro's most prominent foreign ally, has stayed largely silent on the race despite weighing in heavily on other recent elections in Latin America.
A Datafolha poll released Thursday showed the two candidates tied at 50 percent of valid votes, down from a 52-48 Bolsonaro advantage two weeks earlier. Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, finished first in the October 4 first round with 47.03 percent to Lula's 45.16 percent.
A Bolsonaro victory would give Trump an aligned government in Latin America's largest country, the biggest prize yet for an administration that has pushed aggressively to reshape the Western Hemisphere under what has been dubbed the "Donroe Doctrine."
Even so, Trump has stayed quiet, a choice foreign policy analysts told Newsweek was deliberate and has likely worked in Bolsonaro's favor.
A Deliberate Choice
When Bolsonaro visited the White House in May, his team decided not to ask Trump for an endorsement and a White House adviser described the president's reticence as strategic, The Washington Post reported. Trump's most notable comment on the race came after the first round, when he called Bolsonaro's result "a very big victory."
"Trump's relative silence on this race probably pleases the Bolsonaro campaign. It makes it more difficult for Lula to use the foreign intervention and sovereignty issue to his political advantage," Michael Shifter, a senior fellow and former president of the Inter-American Dialogue, told Newsweek. "Trump's open and enthusiastic support for Bolsonaro would have been an electoral gift to Lula."
Brazilians, like most voters, tend to bristle at foreign meddling, Patricio Navia, a clinical professor of liberal studies at New York University, told Newsweek.
"If Trump were to say something in favor of Bolsonaro, that statement could tilt the balance in favor of Lula," he said.
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The restraint marks a sharp departure from Trump's approach elsewhere in the region. Last year, he tied a $20 billion U.S. lifeline for Argentina to President Javier Milei's party winning its midterm elections. Ahead of Honduras' presidential vote, he endorsed Nasry Asfura, warned that U.S. support depended on the outcome and pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández.
"I have no doubt that the White House has understood that in the case of Brazil, overt interference as it happened in Argentina ahead of the legislative election and in Honduras ahead of the presidential election, that that would hurt Flavio and would benefit Lula," Oliver Stuenkel, a professor of international relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo, told Newsweek.
Pressure Without an Endorsement
Washington has still leaned hard on Brazil. The Trump administration imposed 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian goods in 2025, citing in part the prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro, who was later convicted of plotting a coup to overturn his 2022 defeat and sentenced to 27 years in prison. Washington also sanctioned Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw the case, and opened a trade investigation that targeted the country's payment system. The sanctions were later removed.
"So there's clearly, I think, an effort to influence the election," Stuenkel said. "But I think the White House has learned that what may work in Central America or in a particularly unusual case of Argentina ahead of the election, when the currency was on the brink, that that doesn't work in Brazil."
Stuenkel argued that Trump's past threats had so far done more to help Lula than Bolsonaro, by producing a rally-around-the-flag effect.
Flávio Bolsonaro, meanwhile, has cultivated close ties with the administration. In May, he met Trump in the Oval Office, then Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He urged Washington to designate Brazil's two largest criminal organizations as terrorist groups, and the administration announced days later that it would. He has also pledged to bring Brazil into Trump's Shield of the Americas security initiative.
Gimena Sánchez, director for the Andes at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), told Newsweek that photos of those meetings circulated widely in Brazil.
"They do not need to say much because it is well known that the Trump Administration wants them to win," she said.
Democrats in Washington have pushed back. On October 15, the State Department responded to a September 24 letter from independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and 30 House Democrats, affirming Brazilians' right to free and fair elections. In a separate letter, 12 House Democrats called the revocation of Brazilian ambassador Maria Luiza Viotti's U.S. visa "extraordinary and unprecedented" and demanded that Rubio explain the decision.
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How the Campaign Shifted
Lula came out swinging after the first round.
"For Lula, the disappointing result seems to have been a catalyst for a more energetic and aggressive campaign, with promises of government programs and more effective use of social media, in advance of the final vote," Shifter said.
The candidates met for their first runoff debate on October 18 on broadcaster Band, trading accusations over bank records, the Banco Master financial scandal and Jair Bolsonaro's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Analysts said it likely changed few votes.
"Debates rarely matter, unless someone makes a big mistake. Neither Lula nor Flavio Bolsonaro made big mistakes in the debate on Sunday," Navia said.
Sánchez came away unimpressed with both men. "Rather than focus on the voters' real needs they tried discrediting each other," she said.
"Lula was notably fired up and passionate, which may have helped allay some concerns about the age issue," Shifter said of the president, who turns 81 on Tuesday.
Then there is Meta. Lula's campaign has accused the company of tilting its platforms toward Bolsonaro, after Brazilian news outlets found on October 14 that Meta AI generated campaign images of Bolsonaro while refusing identical prompts about Lula.
Meta has denied political bias and attributed the incidents to technical failures.
"The Meta issue is very serious and could lead to mistrust," Sánchez said.
"Brazil is just sort of the first of many countries that I think will have broad discussions and very contentious discussions about the role of Big Tech in elections," Stuenkel said.
WOLA and four other U.S.-based groups, including the Washington Brazil Office and the Center for Economic and Policy Research, wrote to Congress on October 20 asking lawmakers to seek a technical briefing from Meta and consider oversight hearings.
A Test for the Donroe Doctrine
Brazil would become the eighth Latin American country to elect a right or center-right leader since Trump returned to office if Bolsonaro wins, following a string of victories that includes José Antonio Kast in Chile and Abelardo de la Espriella in Colombia.
"If Bolsonaro wins, the Trump administration would achieve the big prize and have an aligned government in the region's largest and most significant country," Shifter said. "But even a Bolsonaro administration would not mean a reduced presence of China in Brazil's economy."
"More likely than a disappointing election result for Flávio is a Flávio presidency that disappoints Trump," Benjamin Gedan, who served as the White House National Security Council director for South America in the Obama administration, told Newsweek. "Brazilian businesses—including the farmers and ranchers propelling Flávio toward the Palácio do Planalto—depend heavily on access to China's market. They will keep him on a short leash when it comes to foreign economic policy."
"Brazil now today exports more to China than to the United States and Europe combined, and I don't expect that to change, no matter who wins," Stuenkel said.
Beijing has vowed to keep deepening its ties with Latin America despite Washington's push. Stuenkel expects the clearest shifts under Bolsonaro to be symbolic and diplomatic, including a promise to move Brazil's embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, opposition to United Nations language on gender and a reversal on climate policy. He described the Shield of the Americas as "essentially a symbolic platform," a partisan grouping unlikely to survive the next ideological swing. Even aligned governments, such as Javier Milei's in Argentina and Kast's in Chile, have kept doing business with China, he said.
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Will the Result Be Accepted?
Brazil's last presidential election was followed by the January 8, 2023, storming of government buildings in Brasília by Jair Bolsonaro supporters. Analysts are divided over whether a close result this time could trigger another crisis.
"Should Lula win by a narrow margin, false claims of fraud from Flávio are almost guaranteed," Gedan said. "His two political mentors—his father and Trump—are both paradigmatic election denialists."
A narrow Lula victory could open a new rift between Washington and Brasília.
"If Lula wins, he will win by a very small margin. And then I think it's practically guaranteed that Flavio will not recognize the result," Stuenkel said. "I think Trump could not recognize the result either, so that certainly could be a low point for the bilateral relationship."
Sánchez added that "it is unclear whether the U.S. will accept a Lula result."
Shifter expects both candidates to concede. "If he loses, Lula can be expected to accept the result," he said. "Still, Flavio has promised to respect the result, he is not his father, and the moment is different, so a reprise is unlikely."
Flávio has largely steered clear of his father's fraud rhetoric, Navia noted. "If he starts denouncing fraud in case he loses, that claim is going to be weakened by the fact that accusations of fraud were not central in the presidential campaign," he said.
A Bolsonaro win could bring its own challenges, Stuenkel said, with some Lula voters likely to argue the election was unfair, "potentially rigged due to the role that Big Tech played."
Whoever wins will face a slow-growing economy and a fragmented Congress. "First, the country must grow faster and the fiscal deficit must be brought under control," Navia added.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here. Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Anthony Murray and Jason Lemon.