Lula wins Brazil's runoff with about 51.8%, markets slide and Flávio Bolsonaro leaves for the US

The runoff result

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won Brazil's presidential runoff on Sunday, 25 October 2026, with about 51.8% of the vote against 48.2% for Flávio Bolsonaro, and the count was nearly complete when the figures were published. The tally at the Superior Electoral Court moved back and forth through the night, with Lula ahead early, Bolsonaro briefly moving in front, and Lula taking the lead only around the midpoint of the count. Polls and betting markets had not predicted the result. In the first round on 4 October, Flávio Bolsonaro had finished about 2.2 million votes ahead of Lula, and the second round reversed that order.

Recall-vote surveys cited in Spanish-language coverage show how Lula's total rose from 53.9 million votes in the first round to 64.3 million in the runoff. According to the same surveys, 6 million of the gain came from people who had abstained, 1.3 million from blank or spoiled ballots and 3.8 million from voters of other candidates, while Bolsonaro added only 3.7 million.

First round, 4 October 202653.9

Runoff, 25 October 202664.3

First round, 4 October 2026

53.9 million votes

Runoff, 25 October 2026

64.3 million votes

Data from the article text

Markets react

On Monday, 26 October, the dollar climbed from R$4.99 to R$5.60 in a single session, a rise of more than 12%. São Paulo's stock exchange fell about 16% and triggered a circuit breaker, the mechanism that suspends trading when a fall is excessive, a step not taken since March 2020 during the pandemic. Long-term interest rates rose almost two percentage points in one move, from about 12.6% to near 14.5%, meaning lenders now demand more to finance the Brazilian state.

Fiscal doubts and Lula's campaign promises

In his victory speech, Lula reportedly said nothing about public accounts, having already addressed the subject during the campaign. In a television interview at the end of August, he said:

“Public debt does not worry me.”

Two weeks later, at a rally in Curitiba, he said Brazil needed to stop the nonsense of running budget surpluses. During his first term, with Antonio Palocci as finance minister, Lula had won investor confidence with solid budget surpluses. In this campaign he promised a surplus of 1.3% of GDP by 2030. A Brazilian press tally of election-year spending measures launched since August put government spending at R$405 billion, about €67 billion.

Flávio Bolsonaro's departure

Flávio Bolsonaro initially refused to accept the result and asked for a rerun before changing course and admitting defeat, saying he would organise the opposition to resist what he called chaos. A court then ordered him to hand over his ordinary and diplomatic passports. Reports said he evaded airport police and flew to the United States, and by 27 October his whereabouts were the subject of coverage. He was reportedly under investigation for suspected money laundering. His father, former president Jair Bolsonaro, is under house arrest after a conviction by Brazil's highest court for attempting a coup, and in 2022 he left for Miami while still president after losing to Lula.

Regional and US reaction

Donald Trump has not recognised the result and has spoken of fraud, while the Brazilian opposition faces a hostile Congress and a victory built on mobilisation that Lula must now sustain. Lula has said Brazil does not accept being anyone's backyard, a line his coverage presents as a red line in relations with Washington. Trump faces midterm elections on 3 November, and the outcome in Brazil complicates his push to expand US influence in Latin America.

The campaign's digital push was led by André Janones, a federal deputy for the Rede party, who created a WhatsApp channel called 'El Ejército de Lula' in April. Coverage says the channel reached 10 million followers on the eve of the runoff and that Janones sent supporters missions on how to interact on social networks. Student protests in Niterói, the day after the first round, helped revive the campaign.