Why Flavio Bolsonaro Beat the Polls in Brazil's Election

With just three weeks to go before the decisive round of Brazil's presidential election, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva finds himself in a weaker position than he and most polling firms had expected.

A second-round runoff had been widely predicted. But the latest surveys showed Lula entering the runoff with a lead of roughly three percentage points over his rival, Senator Flavio Bolsonaro.

Instead, Bolsonaro took about 47% of the vote on Sunday, against 45% for Lula. The reversal caught analysts off guard and raised questions about what happened in the final days of the campaign — and what the polls may have missed.

What changed in the final days

Carlos Pereira, a political scientist at Brazil's Getulio Vargas Foundation, argues that part of the answer lies in a late shift among voters who had planned to back smaller right-wing candidates.

Bolsonaro himself said he was counting on this, telling reporters on election day that he expected a "protest vote" from people who might otherwise have supported another candidate but shared the goal of blocking Lula.

"Usually, voters cast a sincere vote in the first round and a strategic vote in the second," Pereira told Al Jazeera.

This time, he said, some voters who had intended to support candidates such as former Goias governor Ronaldo Caiado and businessman Renan Santos, founder of the right-wing Free Brazil Movement, appeared to have made their strategic choice early.

"They thought: 'Let's try to settle this election now,'" Pereira said. "If we're going to end up voting for Flavio in the second round anyway, why not vote for him now?"

That early consolidation could matter in the runoff, too. Political analyst Rafael Favetti told Reuters that part of the support Bolsonaro would normally only win in a second round had been "brought forward," potentially leaving him less room to broaden his coalition.

Another factor, according to Pereira, was the Banco Master scandal, an alleged large-scale banking fraud that shook both campaigns in the closing weeks and has entangled figures across the political spectrum.

Among them is Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw the case that put Bolsonaro's father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, behind bars. De Moraes has been accused of improper contacts with Banco Master owner Daniel Vorcaro after documents emerged appearing to show the banker seeking legal advice from him. De Moraes has denied the allegations.

Pereira argues that connection may have served as a late "trigger" for some voters. Bolsonaro supporters see Moraes as a political ally of Lula, and Flavio directly linked the two on the campaign trail earlier this year, saying: "Anyone who votes for Lula is voting for Alexandre de Moraes."

A September Datafolha poll found that 34% of Brazilians associated the Banco Master scandal more with the left, against 27% who associated it more with the right.

Andre Pagliarini, a professor of history and international studies at Louisiana State University and author of "Lula: A People's President and the Fight for Brazil's Future," agrees the scandal may have hurt the president. A campaign dominated by "spectacular, serial scandals that seem to implicate the entire political class," he said, played to Bolsonaro's advantage as an "anti-establishment insurgent."

"The irony, of course, is that Flavio himself is directly implicated in the Banco Master scandal in ways Lula is not," he said in an email.

The younger Bolsonaro is under investigation over allegations he sought money from Vorcaro to fund a film about his father. He denies any wrongdoing.

A broader shift to the right

Neither analyst treats the result as a total failure of the polls.

For Pagliarini, the bigger surprise is the scale of support for the right, which extended well beyond the presidential race.

Bolsonaro outperformed his father by nearly four percentage points in the 2022 first round, while his Liberal Party became the largest bloc in Brazil's Senate. The right also performed strongly in gubernatorial races and made significant gains in the country's southeast.

"There is clearly a powerful information environment around Flavio that allows his campaign to keep its message in front of voters even as the mainstream press unearths scandal after scandal," Pagliarini said. "If anything, the polls underestimated the loyalty of voters who were already leaning right."

But the result also points to a deeper challenge for Lula and the Brazilian left: the perception among many voters that the government has not delivered enough, particularly on the economy and public security.

On paper, Lula can point to strong economic indicators such as record-low unemployment, falling inequality and cooling inflation. But that does not necessarily translate into a sense that life has become easier, with Brazilians still squeezed by high food prices and household debt.

A September Quaest poll found that nearly half of respondents believed the economy had worsened over the previous year, compared with just 19% who said it had improved.

"Voters can acknowledge that poverty has fallen and unemployment is low while still feeling overworked, indebted, unsafe and fed up with political conflict," Pagliarini said. "The right has found a way to turn those grievances into a very clear political identity."

A difficult fight for Lula

Lula now has three weeks to close a gap of about 2.2 million votes. And there are millions of potential votes to be won.

About nine million votes went to other first-round candidates, while more than 33.4 million Brazilians did not vote, accounting for 28% of registered voters.

"It's possible, but the math is very difficult," Pagliarini said.

To turn things around, Lula would need to win over voters who backed smaller candidates, reach part of the abstention pool and find additional support in the northeast, already his strongest region.

His campaign is preparing a new communications team. Pagliarini said he will be watching the debates, where Lula can confront Bolsonaro directly rather than taking on his brand.

"The odds are slim, but Lula remains an extremely formidable communicator," he said. "Going hard at Flavio in this round is his only hope."