SAO PAULO, April 28 – Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Senator Flavio Bolsonaro were tied in a simulated run-off, an AtlasIntel/Bloomberg poll showed on Tuesday, ahead of this year’s presidential election.
• Right-wing challenger Bolsonaro would receive 47.8% of the vote in a second round of voting, compared with 47.5% for the leftist incumbent.
• In a March poll, Bolsonaro had 47.6% to Lula’s 46.6%.
• A BTG Pactual/Nexus poll on Monday had also shown the two frontrunners were statistically tied.
• In two first-round simulations, Lula was expected to win between 44.2% and 46.6% of the vote, while Bolsonaro would take between 39.3% and 39.7%, depending on other candidates.
• In Brazil, if no candidate gets more than 50% of valid votes, the two frontrunners go to a second-round vote, which has happened in every election since 2002.
• Latin America’s largest economy will hold general elections in October.
• Markets have tracked polls closely since former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is under house arrest, endorsed his son Flavio, 44, in December.
• The 80-year-old Lula, who defeated the elder Bolsonaro in 2022, will seek a fourth non-consecutive term as president.
• AtlasIntel surveyed 5,008 people between April 22 and 27. The poll has a margin of error of 1 percentage point in either direction. REUTERS