Polls closed across Brazil on Sunday as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sought a fourth presidential term — one that would be non-consecutive — while Senator Flávio Bolsonaro entered the race to continue the conservative political movement associated with his father, Jair Bolsonaro. Initial vote tallies pointed toward Bolsonaro holding an advantage. Early returns, covering one in ten ballots cast, put him at 51% of the tally. Court figures put Lula's share of the vote at 40.8%.
Tallying votes runs on electronic machines in Brazil, which means a full picture of the outcome typically takes shape within a few hours of polling stations closing their doors.
On Saturday, both Lula and Bolsonaro held their final campaign events in São Paulo, the state that anchors Brazil's economy. At 80 years old, Lula brought his campaign to a close through a string of visits across São Paulo. According to event organisers, attendance at the rally held in Brazil's largest city reached around 150,000 people backing Lula.
Lula's platform centres on social welfare provision, state-led economic development, and income redistribution — policies associated with his Workers' Party — and when he voted on Sunday, he framed the contest as a choice between upholding democratic governance and its opposite, and between advancement and stagnation.
Holding a Liberal Party seat for Rio de Janeiro in the Brazilian Senate, Flávio Bolsonaro — now 45 — took up that position in 2019. A motorcycle procession he organised wound through the São Paulo interior municipalities of Santa Bárbara d'Oeste and Americana that Saturday. Holding up a portrait of his father, he prompted chants of "mito" from those nearby — a word rooted in Portuguese for "legend" that supporters of Jair Bolsonaro have taken up as a rallying cry on his behalf.
Édouard Bolsonaro, son of the former president who is currently imprisoned after a court found him responsible for attempting to subvert the outcome of the 2022 presidential election, cast his ballot while telling reporters that the country could no longer endure what he described as excessive taxation and the persistent killing of women, and that a change in direction was needed — a message that has anchored his campaign platform of stricter security measures and reduced tax burdens, alongside criticism of living costs under President Lula.
Flávio Bolsonaro has put a pardon for his father at the centre of his electoral platform. Aides to Lula have characterised the Bolsonaro political movement as a challenge to Brazilian sovereignty, citing the connections that Flávio and Jair Bolsonaro maintain with Donald Trump — under whose presidency a 50% tariff on goods from Brazil took effect last year, following the opening of a coup trial against Jair Bolsonaro.
The former president characterised the legal proceedings against him as politically motivated, while the younger Bolsonaro — who has described his own approach as less confrontational than his father's, though he has publicly named the elder Bolsonaro as his guiding political influence — shares with his father positions that include loosening restrictions on firearms ownership and questioning whether human activity drives climate change.
The senator has yet to receive Trump's endorsement, though Trump has indicated he is keeping a close watch on the race — a contest playing out against a backdrop of deep political divisions in Brazil, where both camps have run active digital operations, rapidly turning gaffes, accusations, and unverified claims into videos and AI-generated imagery for social media distribution.
An investigation into Bolsonaro over allegations of corruption, money laundering, and tax evasion — tied to financing arranged for a biographical film about his father — drew public notice in September. No wrongdoing was attributed to him in his own account of events.
Quaest, a Brazilian data intelligence and public opinion research outfit, put Lula at 46 percent and Bolsonaro at 45 percent in its first-round polling figures, as relayed by a news channel. According to the Quaest survey, a potential run-off between the two candidates would put Bolsonaro ahead at 44% against Lula's 42%. The 2022 vote between Lula and Bolsonaro ended with a gap of 1.8 percentage points separating the two candidates.
Beyond the presidential contest, Brazil's electorate of 160 million registered voters will also fill seats for state governors, members of the legislature, and a portion of the Senate.
