SAO PAULO, Oct 26 — Brazilian presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s lead over President Jair Bolsonaro has widened slightly to six percentage points less than one week ahead of a runoff vote, two polls showed today.
Both were conducted between Sunday and yesterday, and the results could have been influenced by Sunday’s incident in which Bolsonaro ally Roberto Jefferson shot at police, resisting arrest.
Lula would win 53 per cent of the valid votes, up from last week’s 52 per cent, against 47 per cent for Bolsonaro, who had 48 per cent in the previous poll, a survey by PoderData said.
A poll by Genial/Quaest found Lula widening his lead slightly to 48 per cent of voter support, while Bolsonaro remains at 42 per cent. Excluding blank or annulled votes and the undecided, Lula had 53 per cent of the votes to Bolsonaro’s 47 per cent, the same numbers for valid votes as the PoderData poll showed.
Genial/Quaest tried to estimate the impact of abstentions by making a “likely voter” adjustment for probable intentions: It showed Lula with 52.1 per cent of valid votes against 47.9 per cent for Bolsonaro, a narrower result than the 52.8 per cent to 47.2 per cent the model showed last week.
Brazilians will vote in the second round of the presidential election on Sunday.
Pollsters were widely criticised after the first-round vote for significantly underestimating support for Bolsonaro.
PoderData interviewed 5,000 voters by telephone and the poll has a margin of error of 1.5 percentage points up or down.
Pollster Genial/Quaest interviewed 2,000 people in person and its survey has a margin of error of 2 percentage points. — Reuters
