Brazilians head to the polls Sunday to elect their next president in a closely fought election that serves as the biggest test yet for Latin America’s ascendant right.
The contest also carries sweeping consequences for Washington’s plans for dominance in the region, pitting a leftist incumbent who has repeatedly defied President Trump against a right-wing ally aligned with the American leader on issues like organized crime and “woke ideology.”
Voters will decide whether to give President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva another term or elect Flávio Bolsonaro, a senator and the son of a former right-wing president currently serving a 27-year prison term under house arrest for attempting a coup.
Worries that Mr. Trump may try to influence the election loom large. A vast corruption scandal embroiling much of the judicial and political elite, including Mr. Bolsonaro himself, has also dampened enthusiasm among voters.
The two leading candidates offer starkly different visions for the future of Latin America’s largest democracy, including on granting the United States preferential access to rare earth minerals, protecting the Amazon rainforest from destruction and loosening ties with China.
Brazilians are also seeking answers on how each candidate plans to tackle a variety of challenges the nation faces, including rising concerns over organized crime and affordability.
Amid a crisis of confidence in Brazil’s top court, many are also eager to see a judicial overhaul.
Mr. Lula and Mr. Bolsonaro have struggled to energize voters though, with many rejecting both. If neither wins at least half of the vote, as polls suggest is likely, a runoff will be held on Oct. 25.
Who are the candidates?
The presidential contest is a familiar one, once again pitting Mr. Lula against a Bolsonaro. This time though, he will face off against the eldest son of the former right-wing president he defeated in 2022.
Mr. Lula, 80, has framed his candidacy as a vote for democracy and the only way to bar the return of the Bolsonaro family to power. Just over a year after Jair Bolsonaro was convicted of orchestrating a vast coup plot, Mr. Lula’s pitch has appealed to many Brazilians worried about further attacks on their nation’s democracy.
He has also cast himself as a protector of sovereignty, standing up to Mr. Trump when he tried, through tariffs and sanctions, to help the elder Mr. Bolsonaro, a political ally, avoid prison.
Yet Mr. Lula, a stalwart in Brazilian politics now seeking his fourth nonconsecutive term, has also struggled to excite many voters hungry for political and economic change.
Seeking to harness the enthusiasm of right-wing voters, Mr. Bolsonaro, 45, has promised to continue his father’s political legacy. At the same time, he is trying to appeal to women and independent voters by casting himself as a more moderate successor.
Mr. Bolsonaro’s momentum in the polls has stalled amid revelations that he is under investigation for corruption after raising millions of dollars for a biopic about his father from a disgraced banker at the center of a multibillion-dollar fraud scandal.
Eleven other candidates are also in the presidential race, but all are drawing support in the single digits, though they may help draw enough votes to force a runoff.
What does Lula propose?
On Mr. Lula’s watch, Brazil’s economy has remained largely unscathed by American tariffs while unemployment has dropped to record-low rates. Still, rising food prices and mounting household debt have weighed on his approval ratings.
Seeking to protect his slim lead in polls, Mr. Lula has spent heavily on welfare and granted temporary fuel subsidies to ease the pain of rising prices linked to the war in Iran.
He also expanded a debt-relief program, under which the government will buy billions in bad consumer loans. And just days before the elections, he banned online betting, which has accelerated Brazil’s worsening debt crisis.
Yet his loudest campaign slogan has been his defiance of U.S. meddling in his nation’s affairs.
Turning sovereignty into a rallying cry, he has urged voters to reject Mr. Bolsonaro, painting him as a puppet of the United States. Mr. Lula has accused the Trump administration of trying to sway the vote in his rival’s favor, so that it can seize Brazil’s vast natural resources.
Mr. Bolsonaro, for his part, has tried to tarnish Mr. Lula’s image by linking him to the crisis engulfing the top court. The president has tried to distance himself, promising broad judicial overhaul.
Drawing parallels with former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., some critics have also questioned whether, at 80, Mr. Lula is fit to serve another term. To rebuff such criticisms, he has taken to posting viral videos of his workout routines on social media.
What is Bolsonaro’s platform?
Mr. Bolsonaro has said that, if elected, he would seek amnesty for his father and right-wing rioters who were handed jail sentences for storming government buildings in January 2023, in an episode reminiscent of the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Pledging revenge against the institutions that convicted his father, he has vowed to impeach Supreme Court justices and overhaul the judiciary, which his movement accuses of censoring conservative online voices.
He has also made security a major part of his platform, vowing to label Brazilian drug gangs as terrorist organizations and build five new maximum-security prisons inspired by El Salvador’s model.
While Mr. Bolsonaro has been vague on his economic plans, he has borrowed from the playbook of Argentina’s Javier Milei, a close ally, and adopted oversize scissors to symbolize cuts to government spending.
He has repeatedly blamed Mr. Lula for the American tariffs, even though exemptions and more trade with China, India and other partners have mostly offset them. He has also promised to forge better relations with the United States, proposing in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio that a transition team be created to address Washington’s complaints about unfair trade practices.
Still, polls show many Brazilians blame Mr. Bolsonaro for Washington’s tariffs, which were first imposed after his brother Eduardo, who has been living in the United States, lobbied Mr. Trump to help their father.
How does Brazil’s voting system work?
Brazilians will cast their ballots through an electronic voting machine recognized by experts as one of the fastest and safest systems in the world. Still, confidence in the machines has declined amid consistent attacks by Mr. Bolsonaro’s movement.
While in office, the elder Mr. Bolsonaro cast unfounded doubts about electoral fraud and claimed he could lose only if the vote were stolen. After his defeat, these claims inspired supporters to assault government buildings, demanding the military overturn the election result.
His son Flávio has also raised questions about the integrity of the voting machines, though he has stopped short of claiming the election could be stolen.
Voting in Brazil is compulsory and, in 2022, turnout for the first round of elections was close to 80 percent.
On Sunday, Brazil’s electoral authority will start providing results when polls close at 4 p.m. E.T., and it will probably announce the final tally a few hours later. You can follow the count in real time here.
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