Overview
- More than 158.7 million Brazilians were eligible to vote in the first round on Sunday, October 4, 2026, using the country’s electronic voting machines with polls open from 08:00 to 17:00 Brasília time and counting due to begin after close.
- Pre‑vote polls published in the days before the election put Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva roughly at 45% of valid votes and Flávio Bolsonaro at about 42%, a gap inside the margin of error that makes a first‑round win unlikely and sets a potential runoff for October 25.
- Both frontrunners cast ballots on Sunday and gave sharply different frames for the choice: Lula urged voters to defend democracy and future generations while Flávio Bolsonaro appealed for a political change to end what he called an era of delay.
- Turnout and abstention are key wildcards because surveys showed declining voter interest, and smaller candidates who together hold roughly single‑digit support could tip the balance in a second round if no one clears 50%.
- The outcome carries clear foreign policy stakes with analysts and regional leaders watching whether a Bolsonaro victory would align Brazil more closely with the U.S. and Israel or whether a Lula win would maintain Brazil’s current multilateral, multipolar approach.