By Alessandra Freitas, Gonzalo Zegarra, CNN
Brasília, Brazil (CNN) — Brazil is heading for another Lula-Bolsonaro showdown. But this time it is Jair Bolsonaro’s eldest son Flávio who stands between leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and another term in power.
A Bolsonaro victory would push the region further towards the right, hand US President Donald Trump a powerful ideological ally in its largest country and potentially strengthen Washington’s hand as it seeks to counter China’s influence across the hemisphere.
For Lula, 80, the runoff vote leaves one of Latin America’s most prominent left-wing leaders fighting for what is likely will be last term if he wins.
Bolsonaro seems to be thriving without his father
Together, Lula and Bolsonaro accounted for more than 92% of the votes, underscoring the strong grip of the Lula and Bolsonaro camps on Brazilian politics.
But neither secured the 50% needed to avoid a runoff, now set for October 25.
The situation now resembles that of 2022, but Bolsanaro performed better than his father did in the first round four years ago.
The crucial battleground was the Southeast, where nearly 40% of the electorate lives. There, Flávio won São Paulo and Minas Gerais.
His victory in Minas Gerais carries particular symbolic weight: the state has voted for the winner in every presidential election since 1989 when Brazil held its first direct presidential election after military rule.
The result suggests Bolsonaro, who exceeded poll projections, has done more than simply inherit his father’s political movement. He may have expanded it.
With a campaign focused on crime and the economy, he secured nearly four percentage points more than his father in the first round in 2022. He leaned heavily on his father’s image while also seeking to present himself as a more moderate figure.
For Lula, the result raises an uncomfortable question. Can his political legacy and record in office still deliver an electoral majority?
Minas Gerais helps explain his predicament. He received 43.21% there, well below the 48.3% won in the first round of 2022. Nor did he achieve the lead margin his campaign had hoped for in the Northeast, his main stronghold.
The race is far from over
The runoff will depend on who can capture voters who backed eliminated candidates and whether either side can mobilize Brazilians who stayed home on Sunday.
The eliminated candidates collectively accounted for 7.82% of votes.
Most of those votes went to candidates on the center-right or right, potentially giving Bolsonaro another advantage.
But abstention is another potentially decisive reservoir of votes. About 21% of eligible voters did not cast a ballot, and mobilizing them could tip the scales in a tight election.
Polls leading up to Sunday showed the two candidates tied in runoff scenarios.
Lula must now overcome a first-round deficit amid voter concerns over purchasing power and crime, an issue Bolsonaro made central to his campaign, as well as controversies surrounding key figures in scandals seen as close to the president.
Bolsonaro, meanwhile, enters the runoff with another advantage: political momentum beyond the presidential race. His party and allies won numerous Senate seats as well as governorships in key states, potentially giving a Bolsonaro presidency significant legislative and regional support.
An even more polarized runoff is expected. Lula will likely frame the vote as a referendum on democracy and while Bolsanaro will focus on his tough-on-crime rhetoric and allegations of corruption against Lula and his party.
Trump has plenty at stake
Few outside Brazil have more riding on the runoff than Trump. The US president openly endorsed Bolsonaro earlier in the campaign and maintains a tense relationship with Lula’s government.
He has been notably quieter in recent weeks but there is little ambiguity over which outcome would better suit Washington.
Since Trump returned to the White House, no left-wing candidate has won a presidential election in Latin America. Now, Washington hopes to bring about an ideological shift in Brazil, the region’s biggest economy, that will help it fully impose its “Donroe Doctrine” and contain China’s influence.
“Trump had already welcomed Bolsonaro to the Oval Office at the White House and has imposed punitive tariffs on Brazil, the sole motivation for which appears to be political,” international relations expert Farid Kahhat, a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, told CNN.
“The fact that he hasn’t spoken out publicly again doesn’t change the fact that he already did so in the past and that he has made public policy decisions in favor of the Bolsonaros,” he added.
For Kahhat, Trump’s recent restraint may itself be strategic.
“They’ve already decided it was better to keep a lower profile,” he said.
There is good reason for caution. Open intervention by Trump could have the opposite effect in the world’s tenth-largest economy, which is far less dependent on Washington than some of its neighbors.
“They’ve noticed that in Brazil, [interference] might not work the same way as it does in Honduras or Colombia,” Kahhat said.
Lula has also used the banner of national sovereignty as a campaign weapon.
Political scientist Manuel Alcántara Sáez, director of the International Center for Political and Social Studies (CIEPS-AIP) in Panama, said another Trump intervention could end up helping Lula.
“It would be more beneficial for Lula because there is a stronger sentiment against US interference,” he said.
Trump isn’t the only regional ally to have backed Bolsonaro. Argentine President Javier Milei supported him and attended his campaign launch, where he hurled insults at Lula.
“Since then, I haven’t noticed Milei getting so involved in the campaign,” Alexander Main, director of international policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told CNN. “I think maybe they felt it wasn’t helping that much.”
But Bolsonaro’s strong showing quickly drew celebration from the Latin American right. Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella who won in June with Trump’s backing said on X: “May God have mercy on our brother country as He did on Colombia. True change is defeating the left.”
Milei followed by congratulating Bolsonaro, saying: “The American continent is made up of citizens who want to live in freedom.”
Is Latin America really moving right or just voting governments out?
Bolsonaro’s performance appears, at first glance, to fit neatly into Latin America’s broader rightward turn. But analysts caution that something more complicated may be happening.
With strategies based on antagonism and the “cancellation” of the opponent, policy proposals and promises “matter very little” in convincing undecided voters, Alcántara Sáez said.
Beyond the committed bases, “the rest of the electorate is driven by other kinds of impulses, including fatigue and despair at seeing, on one side, an 80-year-old candidate and, on the other, a candidate who is the son of someone in prison, convicted of leading an attempted coup,” he said.
That fatigue echoes a broader pattern across Latin America: incumbent parties struggling to survive voter frustration.
Kahhat said that although “this is a time of crisis for the left throughout the region,” the string of right-wing victories should not necessarily be read as a wholesale ideological conversion.
“It depends on the context, but it is not necessarily a rejection of left-wing movements as such, but rather of those in power at a time of great economic instability,” he said.
Brazil’s runoff will therefore test two competing explanations for the political transformation sweeping the region: whether Latin America is undergoing a durable shift to the right, or whether frustrated voters are simply punishing whoever happens to be in power.
For Alcántara Sáez, there is another dividing line that may prove just as important: how Latin American governments position themselves toward Trump.
“Lula would clearly represent someone who would never in his life go along with the ‘Shield of the Americas’ initiative, whereas Bolsonaro would,” he said, referring to a political and security initiative floated by Trump.
“So, rather than a shift to the right, I think this pro-US or anti-US. dimension is what we should be looking at more closely.”
That makes October 25 about considerably more than who governs Brazil. The result could help determine whether the region’s largest power acts as a counterweight to Trump’s vision for the hemisphere, or becomes one of its most important allies.
The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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