SÃO PAULO: As Brazil goes to the polls Sunday, analysts are watching closely to see whether the continent’s most populous nation will be the latest domino to fall into the conservative column, following Colombia, Peru, Chile, and others in voting out the left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.Known by his nickname Lula, the 80-year-old, who served time in jail for corruption in a massive payback bribery scandal, barely leads Brazilian senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former president Jair.Going into Sunday’s first round, neither candidate is expected to win outright.The latest Datafolha poll puts Lula at 42% and Bolsonaro at 38%, with a two-point margin of error.
If the election goes to a runoff, it has Lula up by 3%.But the polls have been wrong before.ANTI-CARTEL CANDIDATE 'THE TIGER' CHANNELS TRUMP AND BUKELE IN COLOMBIA ELECTION SHOCKERFlavio Bolsonaro, Brazilian presidential candidate, top center, during a campaign rally in Sao Joao de Meriti, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, on Saturday, Sept.
26, 2026.President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Bolsonaro are deadlocked less than two weeks before Brazil's election, a new poll showed, following fresh revelations about the challenger's ties to a jailed banker at the center of a massive fraud scheme.
(Dado Galdieri/Bloomberg via Getty Images)"The problem with Datafolha, which is the largest polling institute in the country, is that it tends to underestimate the force and voting intention in candidates running against Lula or the Workers Party (PT).This has been consistent for at least over a decade, and it underestimated Jair Bolsonaro’s number on the runoff of 2018 by 7%," Roberto Reis, an electoral strategist working with several candidates across multiple electoral tiers and analyzing aggregator data, told Fox News Digital.
"According to the latest aggregator data such as MRT News or Polling Data, we currently have Lula leading Bolsonaro 42% to 39% on the first runoff of the elections with Bols...