Progressive voters and supporters of incumbent president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva left reeling after far-right surge

Flávio Bolsonaro is in pole position to win Brazil’s presidential election, after a far-right tsunami propelled him to a shock first-round victory over the incumbent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, leaving progressive voters reeling.

The 45-year-old rightwing candidate received 56.1m votes to Lula’s 53.8m – 47.03% to 45.16% – meaning the 80-year-old leftwinger has a mountain to climb if he is to bounce back in the second round on 25 October. Never, since the return of democracy to Brazil in 1985, has the first-round runner-up managed to turn the game around and win the second ballot.

“Miracles are possible in politics. But I don’t see that happening,” the political scientist Miguel Lago said of Lula’s chances of snapping back. “I don’t see Flávio losing this election now.”

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[–] 5 points 7 hours ago* (1 child)

This is opposite to what I'm seeing.

Here's the important chart:

From this, the 1.87% difference can be overcome by any of the 3rd-4th-5th place parties. Since I'm unfamiliar with Brazilian politics, Wikipedia says Avante is center-left-leaning (voted for Lula previously), Missao is hard-right-wing, and SDP is confusing but appears to now be center-left-wing. So if we are now pushing their voters to polarized ends, the right- and left-wing runners-up cancel each other out, and the remaining party's votes could swing the election.

The problem will be if the weaker-left two parties divide their votes between Lula and Flavio, and the hard-right Missao goes to Flavio 100-ish%, then Flavio still wins. Or some other problem a real Brazilian will point out since I'm just piecing this together from Wikipedia.

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