Why Flavio Bolsonaro outperformed the polls in Brazil’s election

A late right-wing shift, a banking scandal and economic frustration may be behind Bolsonaro’s last-minute gains, experts say.

Flags and towels bearing the images of Brazil's President and presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and right-wing senator and presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro are displayed for sale on a street in Brasilia on September 30, 2026 [FILE: AFP]

With three weeks to go until Brazil’s presidential runoff, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva finds himself in a weaker position than he — or most pollsters — had expected.

A second round of voting was widely predicted. But most recent polls had Lula entering a runoff from first place, putting him about three percentage points ahead of rival Senator Flavio Bolsonaro.

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Instead, Bolsonaro took about 47 percent of the vote on Sunday to Lula’s 45 percent, a reversal that surprised analysts 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 the Getulio Vargas Foundation think-tank in Brazil, believes part of the answer lies in a late shift among voters who had planned to support smaller right-wing candidates.

Bolsonaro himself had said he was banking on exactly that, telling reporters on election day that he expected a “protest vote” from people who might have otherwise backed another candidate but were united in their opposition to Lula.

“Usually, voters, they vote [sincerely] in the first round, and they vote strategically in the second round,” Pereira told Al Jazeera.

This time, he said, some voters who were planning to cast their ballot for candidates like the former governor of the central state of Goias, Ronaldo Caiado, and businessman and founder of the right-wing Free Brazil Movement, Renan Santos, appear to have made the strategic choice earlier.

“They thought, ‘Let’s try to resolve this election right now,’” Pereira said. “If you’re gonna vote for Flavio anyway in the second round, why not vote for him right now?”

That early consolidation could also matter in the runoff. Political analyst Rafael Favetti told Reuters news agency that some of the support Bolsonaro would have usually picked up only in a second round had already been “front-loaded,” potentially leaving him less room to expand his coalition.

Another factor, Pereira said, was the Banco Master scandal , a sprawling alleged banking fraud that rattled both campaigns in the final weeks, touching figures across the political spectrum.

Among them was Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw the case that sent Bolsonaro’s father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, to prison. De Moraes was accused of improper ties to 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 believes that connection may have acted as a late “trigger” for some voters. Bolsonaro’s supporters have seen Moraes as a political ally of Lula, with Flavio making a direct link between the two on the campaign trail earlier this year, saying, “Anyone voting for Lula is voting for Alexandre de Moraes.”

A September Datafolha poll found 34 percent of Brazilians associated the Banco Master scandal more with the left, compared with 27 percent 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, agreed the scandal may have hurt the president. A campaign dominated by “spectacular, unceasing scandal involving seemingly the entire political class”, he said, played to Bolsonaro’s strengths as an “anti-institutional insurgent”.

“The irony, of course, is that Flavio himself was directly implicated in the Banco Master scandal in a way that Lula is not,” he said in an email.

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

A broader shift to the right

Neither analyst saw the result as a wholesale failure of the polls.

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

Bolsonaro won nearly four percentage points more than his father did in the first round in 2022, while his Liberal Party emerged with the largest bloc in Brazil’s Senate. The right also came out strong in gubernatorial races and made significant gains in the southeast of the country.

“There clearly was a powerful information environment around Flavio that allowed his campaign to keep its message in front of voters even as the mainstream press exposed scandal after scandal,” said Pagliarini. “If anything, the polls underestimated the commitment of voters already leaning right.”

But the results also point to a deeper challenge for Lula and the Brazilian left: a sense among many voters that the government is not delivering enough, particularly on the economy and public security.

On paper, Lula can point to a number of positive economic indicators, like record-low unemployment, falling inequality and easing inflation. But that hasn’t necessarily translated into a sense that life is getting easier, as Brazilians have continued to feel squeezed by high food prices and household debt.

A September Quaest poll found nearly half of those surveyed believed the economy had gotten worse over the previous year, compared with just 19 percent who thought it had improved.

“Voters can acknowledge that poverty is down and unemployment is low and still feel overworked, indebted, unsafe and fed up with political conflict,” Pagliarini said. “The right has figured out how to turn those frustrations into a very clear political identity.”

An uphill battle for Lula

Lula now has three weeks to close a gap of about 2.2 million votes. And there are millions potentially up for grabs.

About nine million votes went to other candidates in the first round, while more than 33.4 million Brazilians didn’t vote – 28 percent of registered voters.

“It’s possible, but the arithmetic is tough,” Pagliarini said.

For Lula to turn things around, he’d need to win voters who backed minor candidates, reach some of those who abstained and find more support in the northeast, which is already his strongest region.

His campaign is preparing a new communications team. Pargliarini said he’ll be watching the debates, where Lula could make a case directly against Bolsonaro rather than against his brand.

“The odds are steep, but Lula remains an extremely powerful communicator,” he said. “Going hard at Flavio in this round is his only hope.”

专家表示，右翼势力的后期转向、银行业丑闻以及经济困境可能是博索纳罗最后时刻胜选的背后原因。

2026年9月30日，在巴西利亚的一条街道上，印有巴西总统兼总统候选人路易斯·伊纳西奥·卢拉·达席尔瓦和右翼参议员兼总统候选人弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗头像的旗帜和毛巾正在出售。[文件：法新社]

距离巴西总统决选还有三周，总统路易斯·伊纳西奥·卢拉·达席尔瓦发现自己的处境比他本人或大多数民调机构预期的要不利。

此前普遍预测会进行第二轮投票。但最近的大多数民调显示，卢拉以领先优势进入第二轮，领先竞争对手参议员弗拉维奥·博尔索纳罗约三个百分点。

巴西总统大选：首轮投票的三大要点（共四份清单，此为第1份）

（共4份名单，此为第2份）博索纳罗在巴西大选中表现超出预期，将与卢拉进入决选

博索纳罗最有可能获胜的四位候选人名单之三：巴西首轮选举告诉我们什么

巴西总统大选进入艰难的第二轮投票（共4项）

相反，博索纳罗在周日的选举中获得了约 47% 的选票，而卢拉获得了 45% 的选票。这一逆转令分析人士感到惊讶，并引发了人们对竞选最后几天发生了什么以及民调可能遗漏了什么的疑问。

最后几天发生了什么变化

巴西瓦加斯基金会智库的政治学家卡洛斯·佩雷拉认为，部分原因在于原本计划支持规模较小的右翼候选人的选民在后期发生了转变。

博索纳罗本人曾表示，他正是指望这一点。他在选举日告诉记者，他预计那些原本可能支持其他候选人，但由于反对卢拉而团结起来的人会投出“抗议票”。

佩雷拉告诉半岛电视台：“通常情况下，选民在第一轮投票时是真心实意的，而在第二轮投票时则是策略性地投票。”

他说，这一次，一些原本计划投票给戈亚斯州前州长罗纳尔多·卡亚多和商人兼右翼自由巴西运动创始人雷南·桑托斯等候选人的选民，似乎已经提前做出了战略选择。

佩雷拉说：“他们当时的想法是，‘不如现在就解决这场选举吧。’既然第二轮投票你都要投弗拉维奥，为什么不现在就投他呢？”

这种早期巩固也可能对决选产生影响。政治分析家拉斐尔·法韦蒂告诉路透社，博索纳罗通常需要在第二轮投票中才能获得的部分支持，现在已经“提前”获得，这可能使他扩大联盟的空间更小。

佩雷拉表示，另一个因素是 Banco Master 丑闻，这是一起影响范围广泛的银行欺诈指控，在最后几周震动了双方的竞选活动，触动了政治光谱各个层面的人物。

其中包括最高法院法官亚历山大·德·莫赖斯，他曾审理将博索纳罗的父亲、前总统雅伊尔·博索纳罗送进监狱的案件。德·莫赖斯被指控与马斯特银行老板丹尼尔·沃卡罗存在不正当关系，此前有文件显示，沃卡罗曾向他寻求法律咨询。德·莫赖斯否认了这些指控。

佩雷拉认为，这种联系可能对一些选民起到了“触发”作用。博索纳罗的支持者一直将莫赖斯视为卢拉的政治盟友，弗拉维奥今年早些时候在竞选活动中直接将两人联系起来，他说：“任何投票给卢拉的人就是在投票给亚历山大·德·莫赖斯。”

Datafolha 9 月份的一项民意调查发现，34% 的巴西人认为 Banco Master 丑闻与左翼关系更密切，而 27% 的人认为该丑闻与右翼关系更密切。

路易斯安那州立大学历史与国际研究教授、著有《卢拉：人民的总统与巴西未来的斗争》一书的安德烈·帕利亚里尼也认为，这场丑闻可能对总统造成了损害。他表示，这场“充斥着惊人且持续不断的丑闻，似乎牵涉到整个政治阶层”的竞选活动，恰恰发挥了博索纳罗作为“反体制的叛乱者”的优势。

“讽刺的是，弗拉维奥本人直接卷入了 Banco Master 丑闻，而卢拉却没有，”他在一封电子邮件中写道。

小博索纳罗因涉嫌向沃卡罗索要资金以拍摄一部关于他父亲的电影而接受调查。他否认有任何不当行为。

向右翼的更广泛转变

两位分析人士都认为，这一结果并非民调的彻底失败。

对帕利亚里尼来说，更大的惊喜是右翼的支持规模，这种支持远远超出了总统竞选的范围。

博索纳罗在2022年总统大选首轮投票中比其父博索纳罗的得票率高出近4个百分点，而他的自由党也赢得了巴西参议院的最大席位。右翼势力在州长选举中也表现出色，并在该国东南部地区取得了显著进展。

帕利亚里尼说：“弗拉维奥显然拥有强大的信息影响力，即便主流媒体不断曝光丑闻，他的竞选团队依然能够让选民持续关注他的信息。民调结果甚至低估了那些原本就倾向于右翼的选民的决心。”

但结果也表明，卢拉和巴西左翼面临着更深层次的挑战：许多选民认为政府做得不够，尤其是在经济和公共安全方面。

从表面上看，卢拉可以列举出一系列积极的经济指标，例如创纪录的低失业率、不断下降的不平等和放缓的通胀。但这并不一定意味着人们的生活变得更轻松，因为巴西人仍然感到高昂的食品价格和沉重的家庭债务让他们不堪重负。

Quaest 9 月份的一项民意调查发现，近一半的受访者认为经济状况比上一年恶化，而只有 19% 的人认为经济状况有所改善。

帕利亚里尼说：“选民们虽然承认贫困率下降、失业率低，但仍然感到工作过度、负债累累、缺乏安全感，并且厌倦了政治冲突。右翼已经找到了将这些不满转化为非常清晰的政治认同的方法。”

对卢拉来说，这是一场艰苦的战斗。

卢拉现在有三周时间来缩小与对手约220万张选票的差距。而且，还有数百万张选票可能最终会被拿下。

在第一轮投票中，约有 900 万张选票投给了其他候选人，而超过 3340 万巴西人没有投票——占登记选民的 28%。

“这并非不可能，但计算起来很困难，”帕利亚里尼说。

卢拉要想扭转局面，就需要赢得那些支持小党候选人的选民的支持，争取那些弃权的选民，并在东北部（他目前最强大的地区）获得更多支持。

他的竞选团队正在组建新的公关团队。帕利亚里尼表示，他会关注辩论，卢拉可以在辩论中直接抨击博索纳罗，而不是攻击他的个人品牌。

“胜算渺茫，但卢拉仍然是一位极具影响力的沟通者，”他说。“在这一轮比赛中全力以赴地挑战弗拉维奥是他唯一的希望。”