BRASÍLIA — Senator and Liberal Party leader Flávio Bolsonaro won the first round of the Brazilian presidential elections on Sunday, securing a little over 47% of the vote and outperforming current President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, who finished second with nearly 45% of the ballots.
Despite leading the initial count, the result falls short of the threshold required to declare an outright winner. Under Brazilian electoral law, a presidential candidate must secure an absolute majority of more than 50% of the total legal votes to avoid a second round. Because neither candidate crossed this 50% line, the election will move to a high-stakes runoff scheduled for October 25.
Flávio Bolsonaro is a sitting senator and the son of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who governed the South American nation from 2018 to 2022. Meanwhile, Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva of the Workers’ Party is seeking to secure a historic and record-breaking fourth presidential mandate. The victor of the upcoming October runoff will assume office on January 1, 2027, serving a full four-year term until December 2030.
Sunday’s outcome defied expectations set by pre-election polls. While surveys consistently predicted a tightly contested race that would ultimately be decided in a second round, most pollsters had projected the inverse scenario: Lula leading the first round with far-right candidate Bolsonaro trailing in second place.
The center-left president’s defeat in the opening round continues a broader global and regional post-pandemic political trend. Across numerous democracies in recent years, incumbent leaders or their designated party successors have faced severe electoral headwinds, resulting in the overwhelming majority of ruling administrations losing ground when up for reelection.
The remaining share of the electorate was divided among a crowded field of 11 alternative candidates, all of whom finished far behind the two frontrunners. Among them, psychiatrist Augusto Cury, running under the centrist Avante party banner, secured third place with nearly 3% of the popular vote.
The presidential race was only one component of a massive electoral exercise taking place across the country. In addition to casting ballots for a new president and vice president, millions of Brazilian citizens participated in nationwide legislative and regional elections. Voters were tasked with renewing the entirety of the Chamber of Deputies—the lower house of the National Congress—as well as two-thirds of the federal Senate. Furthermore, voters decided races for state governors across all 26 Brazilian states and the federal district of Brasília. Gubernatorial races are subject to the same strict electoral rules as the presidency, requiring a candidate to achieve an outright majority of 50% of the vote to win in the first round, failing which a regional runoff is triggered.
While the majority of state-level executive races across the country are headed toward second-round runoffs, the populous and economically vital state of São Paulo stood out as one of the few exceptions where a definitive outcome was reached on Sunday. Tarcísio de Freitas, a prominent political ally of the Bolsonaro family, secured a decisive victory and won reelection as governor with nearly 67% of the vote. De Freitas comfortably surpassed his principal challenger, former economy minister and Workers’ Party candidate Fernando Haddad, who finished with approximately 37% of the vote.
As the political establishment prepares for the final stretch of the campaign, both the Bolsonaro and Lula camps are shifting their focus toward building broad coalitions, courting voters from eliminated candidates, and energizing their respective bases ahead of the decisive October 25 runoff.
