President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the incumbent from the Workers Party, leads Brazil's presidential race in first-round voting intentions, but the poll's runoff scenarios against two opponents end in technical ties. The national survey by the DataTrends institute, released on Wednesday, puts Lula at 39% in the first round, ahead of Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, at 35%. In a direct matchup, Flávio scores 45% to Lula's 44%, a difference within the margin of error.
In the first-round simulation, writer Augusto Cury has 6%, Renan Santos has 4%, former Goiás governor Ronaldo Caiado has 3% and Romeu Zema has 1%, according to Correio Braziliense. Blank and null votes add up to 4%, and undecided voters reach 8%. In the other runoff scenarios, Lula leads numerically: 46% to 39% against Zema, 42% to 37% against Cury and 44% to 41% against Caiado, another technical tie.
How the poll was conducted
DataTrends interviewed 2,000 voters across all 27 units of the federation between Saturday, September 12, and Monday, September 14. The margin of error is 2.19 percentage points, with a 95% confidence level. Interviews were automated phone calls, statistically calibrated by gender, age, education and income. The survey is registered with the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Brazil's election authority, under number BR-08691/2026.
Region by region
In the head-to-head matchup with Flávio, Lula leads alone only in the Northeast, with 65.9%, according to Revista Oeste. Flávio moves ahead in the Southeast (52.3% to 35.4%), the South (51.7% to 37.9%), the Center-West (57.9% to 26.4%) and the North (46.6% to 42.5%). The senator also leads among voters with a college degree, at 51.9%, and among those earning more than two minimum wages. Lula's strongest numbers come from voters with less schooling and incomes of up to two minimum wages.
The poll also measured the federal government. 44% of respondents approve of Lula's administration and 50% disapprove; 6% did not know or did not answer. In the government rating, 28% call it excellent or good, 19% fair and 51% bad or terrible.
Brazil votes on October 4, with a runoff set for October 25 if no candidate wins a majority. Other recent surveys show a tight race as well: Correio Braziliense reported that Datafolha puts Lula ahead in both rounds, while AtlasIntel found 46.4% for Flávio and 46.2% for Lula in the runoff.