Brazil Votes Today: Lula Faces Bolsonaro’s Son in the World’s Most Consequential Election

The most consequential election of the year is happening today — and it’s not in the United States.

Brazilians are voting on Sunday in the first round of a presidential election that is equal parts rematch, reckoning and cliffhanger. Nearly 159 million people are eligible to cast ballots between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Brasília time — not just for president, but for governors, senators and national and state legislators. The Superior Electoral Court approved 12 presidential tickets, but two names dominate: incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro.

It is a rematch of the country’s bitter 2022 contest, with a twist. Lula, 80, is seeking a fourth term. His challenger is the 45-year-old senator and eldest son of the man Lula narrowly defeated four years ago, former president Jair Bolsonaro — who is now serving a 27-year sentence after being convicted of plotting a coup to overturn that loss. The scheme, investigators found, included plans to eliminate Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, and to incite the insurrection that saw thousands of Bolsonaro supporters storm Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace on January 8, 2023. Jair Bolsonaro began his term this week at the federal police headquarters in Brasília, in a 12-square-meter room with a bed, private bathroom, TV and desk, after reports that he had removed his ankle monitor with a soldering iron.

Flávio Bolsonaro says he is “a more moderate Bolsonaro,” but he has voiced few policy differences from his father: he has pledged to pardon him if elected, cast doubt on humans’ responsibility for climate change and supports making it easier for Brazilians to buy guns, according to NPR. He is trying to carry forward the political movement his father built.

Lula’s comeback story is its own kind of extraordinary. He governed Brazil from 2003 to 2010, then spent 580 days in prison on corruption convictions that the Supreme Court later annulled in 2021, restoring his political rights — before he beat Bolsonaro in 2022. On Friday he closed his campaign with a “victory march” rally in Rio de Janeiro, marching from the Candelária church — where over a million Brazilians gathered in 1984 to demand direct elections — to Cinelândia, site of the 1968 March of the Hundred Thousand pro-democracy protest, framing the vote as a choice between consolidating democracy and risking its loss.

The polls agree on one thing: it’s close. A CNT/MDA survey released Saturday put Lula at 43.1 percent and Bolsonaro at 38 percent — 47.8 to 42.1 among valid votes — while Datafolha had it 45 to 42 and Quaest 46 to 45 among valid votes. A runoff, which happens if nobody clears 50 percent of valid votes, would be a toss-up: CNT/MDA projected Lula at 47.3 percent to Bolsonaro’s 43.1 in a second round on October 25, and an AtlasIntel/Bloomberg poll had them statistically tied, 47.6 to 47.7. Regional splits run deep — Lula polls at 56 percent in the Northeast, Bolsonaro at 41 percent in the South — and rejection numbers are brutal for both: 56 percent of voters say they would never vote for Flávio Bolsonaro, 55 percent say the same of Lula.

The stakes reach far beyond the two families. The next president is expected to nominate four of the 11 justices on Brazil’s Supreme Court, locking in influence over the judiciary for years. The winner will also shape the economy of Latin America’s largest nation, the fate of the Amazon and climate policy, the country’s relationship with the United States — a contest Washington has already tried to influence, according to Lula — and the durability of a young democracy still digesting the first coup-plotting conviction of a former president in its history.

Results begin trickling in Sunday evening, Brasília time. If the polls are right, they won’t end the story — they’ll just set the date for the sequel: October 25.