Brazilians are voting today, Sunday, October 25, to choose their president — and after one of the most bitter campaigns in the country’s recent history, nobody can say with confidence who will win. The runoff pits the 80-year-old left-wing incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, against the 45-year-old right-wing senator Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro. Polls open at 8 a.m. and close at 5 p.m. Brasília time, with the electoral court due to begin publishing the national count as polls close.
The race is, by every measure available, a tie. Flávio Bolsonaro finished first in the October 4 first round with about 47% of the vote to Lula’s roughly 45%, but neither cleared the 50% needed to win outright — which is why Brazil is voting again today. Since then, the gap has narrowed to nothing. A CNT/MDA poll released on Saturday put Bolsonaro at 46.3% and Lula at 45.0%, within its 2.2-point margin of error. Datafolha, surveying October 23–24, found Bolsonaro at 48% and Lula at 47%. Quaest had it 46% to 45%. AtlasIntel put Bolsonaro at 49.9% to Lula’s 48.4%. And when pollsters counted only valid votes — excluding blank and spoiled ballots — Datafolha found a 50–50 split, while Vox Brasil gave Lula a whisker of a lead, 50.6% to 49.4%.
Read together, the polls describe a country split down the middle, with the deciding factor likely to be turnout. About one in five eligible voters stayed home in the first round — the highest abstention rate since 1998 — and both campaigns spent Saturday trying to drag those voters to the polls. Lula marched along Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro and then down São Paulo’s Paulista Avenue, telling supporters they faced a choice between a candidate who “kisses the national flag” and one who “kisses the American flag” — a jab at Flávio Bolsonaro’s alignment with US President Donald Trump. Flávio Bolsonaro’s supporters, meanwhile, rode motorcycles through Minas Gerais in the yellow jerseys of Brazil’s national football team.
The choice is stark. Lula, a former union leader seeking a fourth non-consecutive term as president, has campaigned on social spending, environmental protection — including the Amazon rainforest, which covers much of northern Brazil and is often called the lungs of the planet — democratic institutions and national sovereignty. Flávio Bolsonaro, of the Liberal Party, has promised a tough-on-crime agenda including a large expansion of prison capacity, cuts to government spending, a libertarian economic programme and closer alignment with Washington. He has also promised to pardon his father, Jair Bolsonaro, who led Brazil from 2019 to 2023.
Why this matters beyond Brazil: Brazil is Latin America’s largest country and economy, home to most of the Amazon, and a major exporter of food and minerals to the world. A Lula victory would keep South America’s biggest country in the camp of left-wing governments committed to multilateral institutions and climate diplomacy. A Bolsonaro victory would pull the continent’s giant into alignment with the Trump administration — commentators have noted it would leave Uruguay as the only South American country outside Washington’s orbit — with consequences for trade, Amazon policy and the region’s democratic norms. The result will also be watched in Washington, where Trump has previously used unproven fraud claims to reject unfavourable election results, raising concerns about how a close or contested outcome might be received.
Brazil counts votes electronically, and partial results are expected within hours of polls closing — so unlike some elections that drag on for days, the world should know tonight which way the continent’s largest democracy has swung. For now, though, the only honest forecast is the one the polls keep giving: too close to call.
Internal links: Flávio Bolsonaro stunned Lula in Brazil’s first round, setting up today’s runoff; Lula and Bolsonaro traded fire in the first debate.
