🤔 Is it still the economy, stupid?

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva heads into Brazil's Oct. 25 runoff trailing in the polls, with an economic record most incumbents would envy. He took 45.2% of valid votes in the first round to Flávio Bolsonaro's 47%, and he trails in four of the first five runoff polls. 

Yet GDP has grown nearly 10% since Lula took office in 2023, the strongest run for any Brazilian president since his own second term (2007-2010). Unemployment, around 5%, is the lowest on record, and formal private-sector employment has grown 9.8% to an all-time high.

Inflation has cooled as well. Prices have risen 18.9% in Lula's third term, and market forecasts put the four-year total at 20.1%, the lowest for any term since the 1994 Real Plan, when Brazil introduced a new currency to end hyperinflation. 

Food at home, the great villain of the post-pandemic years, is up 14%, against 53% at the same point of Jair Bolsonaro's presidency. Real wages are at a record, every income group has gained, and the Ibovespa stock index is up 33% after inflation. Under Bolsonaro, it rose 2% in four years.

The plot recalls the 2024 US election, when Democrats lost the White House to Donald Trump with unemployment near 4%, inflation falling, and growth outpacing other rich economies. Brazil's case is harder to explain…