Lula trails Flavio Bolsonaro 49-51 among valid votes. Does Bolsonaro win the Oct 25 runoff by more than 5 points of the valid vote?
70% of users predicted NO — the community got this one right. 10 predictions cast.
Lula won Brazil's Oct. 25 runoff, so Flávio Bolsonaro did not win by more than five points of the valid vote — he did not win the election at all. Official results from Brazil's electoral court (TSE) showed Lula taking 51.79% of valid votes (about 64.26 million) to Bolsonaro's 48.21% (about 59.83 million), a roughly 3.6-point margin in Lula's favor.
The outcome reversed polling that had shown Lula trailing narrowly in the final days before the vote. Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, had led the Oct. 4 first round but was overtaken in the runoff. He rejected the result and indicated he would challenge it in court. Brazil's Supreme Court had extended voting hours by two, at the joint request of both campaigns, following reports of isolated delays at polling stations.
Lula's win made him the first candidate since Brazil's return to direct elections in 1989 to capture the presidency after trailing in the first round.
The community had assigned just a 30% chance to a Bolsonaro blowout win, correctly leaning against that scenario, though the actual result went further still: Lula won outright rather than narrowly.