Brazil is the largest country and economy in Latin America, and the contest had become a test of whether the region’s rightward shift could be stopped. Lula’s victory interrupted that drift and dealt a setback to President Donald Trump’s ambition to build a hemisphere of governments aligned with his politics. Yet interpreting the result as a triumph for the left would be a mistake.
Flávio, whose father and former president Jair Bolsonaro is serving 27 years in prison for crimes against democracy, won the first round, with 2 million more votes than Lula, and his Liberal Party’s formidable showing in Congress in early October shocked the liberal world. He ran as his father’s proxy. He promised to pardon his father and his accomplices and to carry forward his political legacy.
The children of Lula’s social policies came of age in a rapidly changing world, and in a country where formal employment, labor unions, and traditional social protections have struggled to serve an increasingly informal workforce. Some turned toward market-oriented politics. Others found a sense of belonging in conservatism, part of a broader rightward turn among young men around the world.
Meanwhile, lethal violence had become a defining feature of everyday life. Brazil had urbanized rapidly without addressing deep inequality or reforming a public-security system inherited from the military dictatorship. Overcrowded prisons became recruiting grounds for criminal factions.
Flávio understood how to exploit voters’ distrust and frustration. His promises of tougher security resonated with Brazilians desperate for protection. His campaign drew comparisons to the hardline model of President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador. Yet Bolsonaro Jr. also faced questions about his own associations with criminal figures in Rio, undermining his claim to offer a solution to the country’s security crisis. During the campaign, new revelations about his ties to Daniel Vorcaro, the disgraced banker and owner of Banco Master at the center of a vast financial scandal, added to those doubts, even as he denies wrongdoing.
How Lula fought back
Lula’s campaign had expected these vulnerabilities to suffice. When Flávio entered the presidential race in Dec. 2025, early polls placed Lula comfortably ahead. His first-round defeat jolted the progressive camp out of its complacency. Lula’s campaign returned to the streets of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and intensified its presence on social media, seeking to mobilize the voters who had stayed home in the first round. Lula’s people reorganized their digital outreach to speak more directly to younger Brazilians and informal workers.
The most potent opening for the Lula campaign came from Washington. Trump praised Flávio’s first-round performance as a “very, very big victory,” helping Lula recast the runoff as a contest over national sovereignty. The tariffs had already alienated Brazilian exporters and moderate voters.
On São Paulo’s Paulista Avenue, Brazil’s main stage for political protests, a protester wore a Trump mask and carried a Flávio puppet. The image captured the choice Lula wanted the voters to see. This was no longer simply a referendum on his record. It was also a choice about whether Brazil would let an American president shape its politics.
Lula’s victory is both a reprieve and a warning. It shows that a broad democratic coalition, mobilizing in the streets and online, can defeat a far-right candidate even amid a regional shift to the right and pressure from Washington. But the victory has not resolved Brazil’s divisions. Lula must govern a country where about half of those who cast valid ballots chose his opponent. He has won four years. He has not won back the country.
Flávio has challenged the result and demanded that the runoff be annulled. His party holds a powerful position in Congress, where conservative and center-right forces can obstruct Lula’s agenda. The election has given Brazilian democracy breathing room, but the battle for Brazil’s democracy has only begun. What Lula does with his mandate will determine whether he can make it count.
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