Aug 18 2026 | Nº 20

The Elections Have Begun: 6 Analyses and One Synthesis

By Paulo Abrão
Executive Director of the Washington Brazil Office

Brazil’s electoral campaign officially began this Sunday, August 16  with a landscape that already appears fairly well defined: Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro dominate the presidential race, while the remaining candidates will have little time to break through a polarization that had already consolidated before the formal start of the campaign. The latest BTG/Nexus poll offers a snapshot of this starting point: Lula has 41% of first-round voting intentions, Flávio 36%, while Caiado has 5%, and Renan Santos and Zema 4% each. In a potential runoff, Lula and Flávio are statistically tied, at 47% and 44%, respectively.

Based on the first campaign events, the polls, and the analyses published at the outset of the race, six hypotheses may help explain what is at stake.

1. The election begins as a more bipolar than multiparty contest. Although thirteen candidacies have been launched, only two currently concentrate a significant share of voting intentions. Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro together account for 77% in the latest poll, while none of the other candidates exceeds 5%. The main barrier for Caiado, Zema, and Renan Santos, therefore, will not simply be to grow individually, but to convince voters that there is still room for an alternative outside the two dominant poles.

2. Lula starts ahead, but without a comfortable lead. The president leads in the first round and is numerically ahead in runoff scenarios, but the gap over Flávio Bolsonaro remains narrow. The technical tie of 47% to 44% indicates that incumbency and the broad structure of his coalition do not, at this point, guarantee him an easy election. Lula launched his campaign by returning to São Bernardo do Campo and drawing on his own political biography, comparisons between administrations, the defense of national sovereignty, and a social agenda. His challenge will be to turn political memory, government results, and institutional advantages into real expansion beyond the electorate already consolidated around him.

3. Flávio Bolsonaro has become a genuinely competitive challenger. His candidacy began surrounded by doubts about his ability to inherit his father’s political mantle and keep the Bolsonarist electorate united. Current numbers, however, show that Flávio entered the formal campaign as the only candidate in a position to face Lula in a competitive runoff. His opening rally on Copacabana Beach reaffirmed his ties to his father, anti-PT sentiment, public security, and confrontation with the political and judicial establishment. His main challenge now will be to broaden that base without losing the identity that keeps it mobilized.

4. The opening of the campaign suggests that the two poles will first mobilize their bases before competing for the center. The inaugural events were highly symbolic. Lula returned to the birthplace of his union leadership; Flávio chose Copacabana, one of the main spaces of Bolsonarist mobilization. Their speeches sought to reaffirm identities rather than moderate them. This suggests the first stage of the campaign may focus on consolidating their respective electorates before more intense competition for undecided and less ideologically committed voters. Even so, 17% of respondents in the spontaneous poll named no candidate, showing that a significant share of the electorate remains winnable.

5. Women may constitute one of the main fields for electoral expansion. Women represent around 53% of the electorate, and both leading candidates courted them on the first day of the campaign. Lula highlighted female leaders and spoke about equality and policies aimed at women; Flávio also sought to incorporate public security and family protection into his message. In a close race, differences in support among male and female voters may prove decisive, especially if one candidate reduces rejection or builds a consistent advantage among women.

6. The international dimension is already part of the domestic contest. National sovereignty, Donald Trump, tensions with the United States, and support from international right-wing leaders for Flávio Bolsonaro’s candidacy can no longer be treated as peripheral issues. Lula used the launch of his campaign to denounce foreign interference again and defend greater Brazilian autonomy over strategic resources; Flávio seeks to present his international connections as part of a conservative political network that can reposition Brazil internationally. The election therefore begins with an unusually strong external dimension, one that may shape both the domestic narrative and the debate over the legitimacy of the electoral process.

The synthesis, at this point, is simple: the campaign begins with an almost consolidated electoral polarization, but with the political narrative still fully contested. Today’s numbers show an extremely tight race between the two poles as the starting point. Lula is trying to turn governing experience, political memory, and sovereignty into an electoral majority. Flávio Bolsonaro is seeking to convert anti-PT sentiment, public security, and Jair Bolsonaro’s political legacy into a majority alternative. The other candidates must first break the perception that the election has already been reduced to a contest between the two frontrunners.

QUICK CATCH-UP

Candidates kick off campaigns on home turf

Brazil's 2026 electoral season formally began on Sunday, allowing candidates to seek votes and hold rallies. Television and radio advertising is barred until Aug. 28.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opened at a packed stadium in São Bernardo do Campo, the industrial belt where he rose as a union leader. His speech was mostly a retelling of his own life, under the slogan "Brazil is ready for more" — and cast the race as a defense of democracy.

The future came in glimpses. He renewed his call for a Public Safety Ministry and vowed to jail "everyone who thinks they run the favela," saying the hard part is reaching the financiers, not killing gunmen. He dwelt longest on critical minerals, which he said Brazil should process domestically, having chosen alignment with neither China nor the United States.

Flávio Bolsonaro opened from a sound truck in Copacabana, in a bulletproof vest, before a crowd thinner than his father once drew. He repeatedly invoked his father, Jair Bolsonaro (who serves a 27-year sentence for a failed coup), promised fiscal tightening, and often returned to sovereignty themes, pledging to declare the PCC and the Red Command terrorist organizations (although several of his associates have been linked to such organizations). 

Courting female voters, he promised to protect them, without saying how; his wife, Fernanda, echoed him. Michelle Bolsonaro did not attend, and allies did not mention her.

Renan Santos, of Mission, spoke in a bulletproof vest at the University of São Paulo law school, rejecting Lula and Bolsonaro as "damned." Ronaldo Caiado led a motorcade in Goiás, promising to take his record as governor nationally. Romeu Zema began at a church in Montes Claros, pledging to end organized crime and to court foreign investment.

QUICK CATCH-UP

Lula leads all polls, but his margins tighten

A Nexus poll released Monday — the first since candidacies were formally registered — shows President Lula leading the first round with about 41% of voting intentions. His advantage narrows to a statistical tie in a hypothetical runoff against Jair Bolsonaro, once the margin of error is accounted for. The three other leading candidates barely moved from the survey's previous rounds: Ronaldo Caiado drew 5%, with Romeu Zema and Renan Santos at 4% each.

A Quaest poll released Friday found much the same. On Monday, Quaest published the results of a question on foreign interference. Relations with the US and Argentina are strained, and 45% of respondents called outside meddling in the election plausible; 48% dismissed it. Bolsonaro supporters were likelier than Lula's to call the threat real — though for them it is closer to a hope, since Flávio is the White House's preferred candidate.

OTHER STORIES WE’RE FOLLOWING

Brazil answers US tariffs, in slow motion

Camex, the Foreign Trade Chamber, opened the first case under Brazil's 2025 Economic Reciprocity Law on Thursday, and the Foreign Affairs Ministry asked Washington for consultations — step one of a process that can end in retaliation. 

Nothing moves fast. A working group, a 30-day consultation, and a Camex ruling within 60 days stand between Thursday's notice and any countermeasure. Brazilians vote Oct. 4; the runoff falls 72 days out.

That is the point. Polling shows most oppose retaliating and oppose conceding. Doing nothing looks passive; striking back raises prices before the vote. Brasília has loaded a weapon it would rather display than fire.

Lula's son in the spotlight

The Federal Police intercepted messages between Fábio Luís Lula da Silva, the president's son, and Roberta Luchsinger, a lobbyist under investigation for influence peddling. The two discussed business meetings and access to senior officials, including Lula's former personal secretary. Investigators are also examining whether Luchsinger bought jewelry for the secretary and made irregular payments to him. The messages surface as prosecutors pursue a fraud case at INSS, the social security agency, in which Lula's son is under scrutiny. His lawyers say the exchanges have been stripped of context as part of a political hit job.