President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva holds 38% of first-round voting intentions in Brazil's presidential race, against 33% for Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL), according to a Datafolha poll released on Thursday (Sept. 3). In a potential runoff between the two, Lula scores 46% to Bolsonaro's 44%, a gap inside the poll's margin of error.
Datafolha, one of Brazil's best known pollsters, interviewed 2,002 people aged 16 and older in 125 cities on Sept. 1 and 2. The margin of error is two percentage points either way, with 95% confidence. The survey was commissioned by TV Globo and the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo and is registered with the Superior Electoral Court, Brazil's top election authority, under code BR-03669/2026.
Cury in third
Writer Augusto Cury (Avante) reached 8%, followed by Ronaldo Caiado (PSD) with 4%, Renan Santos (Missão) with 3% and Romeu Zema (Novo) with 2%, G1 reported. According to Folha, a social media strategy added 2.5 million followers to Cury's Instagram account.
Rejection and the government record
Lula's runoff lead has narrowed. In the institute's previous round the two candidates were four points apart. The gap is now two points, which InfoMoney describes as a statistical tie.
Rejection remains high for both frontrunners. Datafolha found that 47% of voters say they would never vote for Flávio Bolsonaro, and 45% say the same about Lula. Two weeks earlier, those shares stood at 46% and 45%. Cury's rejection rate is 9%.
Disapproval of Lula's government rose to 51%, while approval fell to 45%. In August the figures were 50% and 47%. Respondents rating the administration bad or terrible rose from 41% to 42%, while great-or-good ratings slipped from 33% to 31%. Another 25% call it merely average, InfoMoney reported. Folha attaches this note to its poll coverage:
"The results of a poll are not forecasts, that is, they do not aim to predict what will come out of the ballot boxes. They form a portrait of the opinions of the interviewees at the moment the researchers were in the field."
The poll lands a little over a month before the first round, set for early October. Lula is running for reelection. Flávio Bolsonaro was drafted into the race by his father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, who announced him from jail as this year's candidate, Folha recalled. If no candidate wins more than 50% of valid votes, the top two go to a runoff.