Two Monday polls put Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro 0.6 and 2.2 percentage points ahead of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva before Brazil’s Oct. 25 runoff; the smaller gap was within Nexus’s margin of error.
Nexus, in a poll commissioned by BTG Pactual, found Bolsonaro at 46.5% and Lula at 45.9%. Its two-percentage-point margin of error exceeds the gap between them. The pollster interviewed 2,002 people from Oct. 16 to 18.
Nexus’s public release on Oct. 13 gave rounded figures for its earlier survey: 48% for Bolsonaro and 45% for Lula. That three-point numerical gap was larger than the one in Monday’s poll.
The AtlasIntel/Bloomberg poll put Bolsonaro at 49.8% and Lula at 47.6%, a 2.2-point difference. Its Oct. 9 reading was 51.1% to 45.7%, a 5.4-point difference. AtlasIntel surveyed 4,998 people from Oct. 13 to 18 and reported a one-percentage-point margin of error.
On a valid-vote basis, Nexus reported 50.3% for Bolsonaro and 49.7% for Lula; AtlasIntel reported 51.1% and 48.9%, respectively. Those calculations exclude blank votes and undecided respondents.
Bolsonaro received 47.03% of valid votes in the Oct. 4 first round, against Lula’s 45.16%, Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court (TSE) said in an early Oct. 5 update. The court said 99.99% of ballot boxes had been counted at that point.
An earlier Datafolha poll, conducted Oct. 13-14, put Bolsonaro at 47% and Lula at 45% in total vote intentions. It surveyed 2,520 people in 153 municipalities and reported a two-percentage-point margin of error. The interviews ended before Sunday’s debate.
The candidates disputed security, health care and the cost of living in Sunday’s televised debate. TV Globo has scheduled another debate for Oct. 23, two days before the runoff.
