2026 ELECTION
Brazil's tired electorate holds the key to a race nobody can call

The 2026 campaign has failed to engage voters. Photo: Paulo Pinto/EBC
Brazil votes for president on Sunday, and every major pollster describes the same race: too close to call and hinging on voters who have not yet made up their minds. Quaest puts President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at 39% and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro at 34% in the first round; Nexus has it at 42% to 37%, and Ideia finds the two 1 point apart. After pollsters misjudged the 2022 first-round result, even those figures carry an implied asterisk.
The undecided bloc is…

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2026 ELECTION
Follow the election results live with us

On Oct. 4, The Brazilian Report and the Brazil Office Alliance are joining forces for a live Election Night broadcast. We’ll break down the campaign’s defining issues, unpack the results as they come in and, most importantly, look ahead to what they mean for Brazil’s political future. We go live at 5 pm Brasília time — 4 pm EDT, 8 pm GMT.
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Hosts:
Gustavo Ribeiro is an award-winning journalist and co-founder and editor in chief of The Brazilian Report. He holds a master’s degree in political science and Latin American studies from Panthéon-Sorbonne University in Paris.
James N. Green is a historian and professor emeritus of modern Latin American history and Portuguese and Brazilian studies at Brown University. His work focuses on modern Brazil, including the military dictatorship and the history of U.S.-Brazil relations.
Guests:
Beatriz Rey is a political scientist and researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon. Her research focuses on legislative politics, political institutions and policymaking in Brazil and Latin America.
Thiago Vidal is director of political analysis at Prospectiva, a public-affairs consultancy, where he is based in Brasília. His work focuses on Brazilian politics and its implications for businesses and investors.
Mariana Borges is a lecturer in politics at the University of Southampton and director of its Centre for Political Ethnography. Her research focuses on political behavior in Brazil, particularly among lower-income voters, as well as misinformation and electoral politics.
Fábio de Sá e Silva is president of the Brazilian Studies Association and an associate professor of international studies at the University of Oklahoma. His research focuses on law, lawyers, democracy and democratic backsliding, particularly in Brazil.
David Nemer is an associate professor of media studies at the University of Virginia and an ethnographer of technology. His research examines technology, inequality and misinformation, with extensive fieldwork in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America.
Bruna Santos is director of the Brazil Program at the Inter-American Dialogue. Her work focuses on Brazilian politics, democracy and US-Brazil relations.
Guilherme Casarões is a political scientist and professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in São Paulo. His research focuses on Brazilian foreign policy, international relations and the politics of the far right.
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