Former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro (PL), the wife of former president Jair Bolsonaro, leads the Senate race in Brazil's Federal District with 21% of voter intentions, a Datafolha poll released on Friday showed. Senator Leila do Vôlei of the PDT is second, at 18%. Two of the district's three Senate seats are on the ballot in October.
The gap between them falls inside the poll's margin of error of three percentage points, which counts as a statistical tie. Datafolha conducted the survey for Globo and the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, interviewing 910 voters between September 8 and 11. The confidence level is 95%, and the poll is registered with electoral authorities as DF-06055/2026 and BR-04623/2026.
Bia Kicis (PL) follows at 15% and Erika Kokay (PT) at 14%, both technically tied with Leila. No other candidate tops 2%. Blank, null or no candidate answers total 11%, and 9% of respondents are undecided.
Gains since August
All four front-runners grew since the previous survey, released on August 21. Michelle moved from 19% to 21%, and Leila from 16% to 18%. Bia Kicis jumped from 11% to 15%, and Erika Kokay from 12% to 14%. Blank and null answers fell from 16% to 11%, and undecided voters from 14% to 9%.
In the spontaneous survey, where candidates' names are not shown to respondents, undecideds dropped from 67% to 49%. Michelle went from 8% to 15% of mentions, and Bia Kicis from 4% to 11%. Leila rose from 5% to 7%, and Erika Kokay from 4% to 6%.
Two votes per voter
Brazil renews two of the three Senate seats held by each state and by the Federal District, the area that includes the capital, Brasilia. Every voter casts two Senate votes. On the first, Michelle leads with 34%, up from 29%, ahead of Leila at 18%, Erika Kokay at 17% and Bia Kicis at 8%. On the second, Bia Kicis moves to the front with 21%, followed by Leila at 19%, Erika Kokay at 11% and Michelle at 9%.
Folha published a methodology note alongside the numbers:
"Poll results are not forecasts; they do not aim to anticipate what will come out of the ballot boxes. They are a snapshot of respondents' opinions at the moment interviewers were in the field."
The first round is set for October 4. According to news site g1, Globo outlets will publish 130 polls on the presidential, state and Senate races through the eve of the vote, commissioned from Datafolha and fellow pollster Quaest.