Flávio Bolsonaro leads Lula into a 25 October runoff after a full count

Flávio Bolsonaro and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will meet in a runoff on 25 October after neither cleared 50 percent of valid votes in Sunday's first round. With the count finished, El Nacional reported the Superior Electoral Court figures as 56,104,503 votes for Bolsonaro, 47.03 percent, and 53,879,538 for Lula, 45.16 percent. The gap is about 2.22 million votes.

Earlier snapshots, still short of every station, were close to those totals. The Rio Times, citing the TSE at 99.96 percent, had Bolsonaro on 56,098,129 votes and 47.04 percent, Lula on 53,845,563 and 45.15 percent. Plural, at 99.89 percent, had 56,077,637 and 47.05 percent against 53,785,199 and 45.13 percent. The direction did not change as the last boxes came in. Bolsonaro, a 45-year-old senator for the Liberal Party, finished ahead. Lula, 80, of the Workers' Party, finished second and goes to a fourth bid for a term, not consecutive with his earlier ones.

Bolsonaro led in 15 of 27 states, including São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais. Lula led in 12, and in all nine states of the Northeast. Plural put his strongest shares at 70.97 percent in Piauí, 66.09 percent in Bahia and 63.94 percent in Maranhão. That map is close to the 2022 split. The first-round lead has changed hands relative to some expectations, not the regional pattern.

Abstention was 21.08 percent, about 33.5 million of 158.7 million registered voters, on the Rio Times reading of the TSE file. In a compulsory-voting system that rate is the unused part of the electorate the runoff campaigns will try to move, along with the voters of eliminated candidates.

Behind the top two, with 99.89 percent counted, Plural had the writer Augusto Cury of Avante on 2.89 percent, Renan Santos of Missão on 2.24 percent, and Ronaldo Caiado of the PSD on 2.18 percent. El Nacional said Cury and Santos, together about 6.1 million votes, had announced they would not endorse either finalist. Caiado said he would consult his party. Romeu Zema said he would vote against Lula. Those four decisions are the only published guides to where the remaining valid votes may go on 25 October. They are not a transfer model.

State races moved the same night. Tarcísio de Freitas of the Republicanos was re-elected in São Paulo with 62.65 percent. Cleitinho Azevedo, also Republicanos, won Minas Gerais with 55.40 percent. Plural counted seven state runoffs on the same day as the presidential second round, including Rio de Janeiro, where Douglas Ruas of the Liberal Party led Eduardo Paes, and the Federal District, where Celina Leão of the PP led Leandro Grass of the PT. Ten governors were elected outright. The presidential map and the gubernatorial map are not the same contest, but a voter in São Paulo or Minas will see a settled state government and an open presidency on the same calendar.

Polls close at 17:00 Brasília time on 25 October. The TSE count on Sunday night and Monday morning is the baseline. A swing of a little over two points in valid votes, or a different distribution of the Cury, Santos and Caiado shares, is enough to reverse the first-round order. Nothing in the published endorsements locks that swing in either direction.

Flávio Bolsonaro's total, on the completed count reported from the TSE, is higher than the vote his father, Jair Bolsonaro, received in the first rounds of 2018 and 2022, El Nacional noted. That comparison is about raw votes, not about the share of a larger register. The 2026 register, 158.7 million, and the 21.08 percent abstention, are the denominators that make the 47.03 percent a share of valid votes rather than of all registered voters. A runoff under compulsory voting still leaves a fine for staying home, so the abstention figure is a choice with a cost, not a free option.

The Liberal Party's first-round lead also lands in a Congress that was elected the same day. Senate and Chamber results were still being read on Monday, and they will shape what either finalist can pass if he wins on 25 October. A presidency without a floor leader in both houses is a constraint Lula has governed under before and that Bolsonaro would inherit if the PL's state gains do not repeat in the Chamber. The presidential numbers above do not settle that count.

What the first round does settle is the field. Cury and Santos are out and have said they will not endorse. Caiado is out and has deferred to his party. Zema has said he will vote against Lula. The Northeast remains Lula's largest bloc. São Paulo, Rio and Minas remain Bolsonaro's. The distance between them, 2.22 million valid votes, is the figure any late shift has to close or widen.