The deadlock is over. With three quarters of Brazil's vote counted on Sunday night, incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has opened a commanding lead over right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro in the presidential runoff — reversing the knife-edge tie that held for most of the evening.
With 74.8 percent of polling sections processed, Lula leads with 51.1 percent (47,205,970 votes) against Flávio Bolsonaro's 48.9 percent (45,213,739 votes) — a gap of 1,992,231 votes out of 92,419,709 valid ballots counted, according to the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) figures tracked live.
From a 13,000-vote tie to a two-million-vote lead
Just two hours earlier, with 46.48 percent counted, the two men were separated by roughly 13,000 votes — Flávio Bolsonaro at 50.01 percent, Lula at 49.99 percent. The lead has flipped decisively since then, and the trend now points firmly in one direction.
The projection puts Lula on course to win with 51.8 percent of the final vote (a 90 percent range of 51.1 to 52.5 percent), against 48.2 percent for Flávio Bolsonaro. On current trends, the model gives Lula a 100 percent chance of winning.
The Northeast delivered the turnaround
The shift came as votes poured in from Brazil's Northeast, Lula's historic stronghold. In Bahia, Lula leads 71.2 percent to 28.8 percent; in Ceará 67.9 percent to 32.1 percent; in Maranhão 69.0 percent to 31.0 percent; in Pernambuco 69.9 percent to 30.1 percent; and in Piauí 76.1 percent to 23.9 percent.
Flávio Bolsonaro still dominates the South and Centre-West — leading in Santa Catarina 69.3 percent to 30.7 percent, in Paraná 62.6 percent to 37.4 percent, in Goiás 60.2 percent to 39.8 percent, and in São Paulo, the country's biggest state, 55.4 percent to 44.6 percent. But it has not been enough to hold back the northeastern wave.
The great bellwether state of Minas Gerais — which no presidential winner has lost since Brazil's return to democracy — is deadlocked at 50.0 percent each, with Lula ahead by just 1,581 votes out of 8.7 million counted there.
No winner declared yet
The TSE has not declared a winner, and roughly a quarter of polling sections still have to report. But with a lead approaching two million votes and the projection now firmly in Lula's favour, the senator's path back has narrowed to almost nothing.
A fourth term for Lula, 80, would be a bulwark against Washington's influence in the region, after a campaign in which he warned that the Trump administration would try to tilt the race. A victory for Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, would have extended a wave of right-wing victories across Latin America by candidates friendly to United States President Donald Trump — and the senator has pledged to seek legal pardons for his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, convicted over the January 2023 storming of government buildings.
In the first round on October 4, Flávio Bolsonaro finished first with 47.03 percent (56.1 million votes) against Lula's 45.16 percent (53.9 million) — a result that defied most pre-election polls. The final surveys before the runoff called it a technical tie: Datafolha 51 to 49 for Flávio Bolsonaro, Atlas/Bloomberg 50.8 to 49.2, PoderData 51 to 49, all within the margin of error.
Reporting based on the TSE official count and live results tracking.