Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has 48% support in a potential second-round matchup with Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, who has 45%, according to a Datafolha poll released Thursday, three days before Sunday’s election.
The three-point gap remains within the poll’s two-point margin of error, making the contest a technical tie.
In the first-round scenario, Lula receives 42%, followed by Flavio Bolsonaro with 38%. Augusto Cury has 4%, while Ronaldo Caiado and Renan Santos each receive 3%. The previous Datafolha survey had Lula at 40% and Bolsonaro at 36%.
If no candidate secures more than half of the valid votes in the first round, the two leading candidates will advance to a runoff scheduled for October 25.
Flavio Bolsonaro has publicly expressed support for Israel, as did his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro. He visited Israel in January, including the Western Wall and Israel’s biblical heartland, and said at the time he would move Brazil’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem if elected.
“It is an honor to defend Judeo-Christian values and to show the Jewish people that the Brazilian people support them," he said during the visit.
Jair Bolsonaro was a strong supporter of Israel while president and visited the country in March 2019. His sons have also previously been seen wearing shirts associated with the IDF and Mossad, while Israeli flags have frequently appeared at his political rallies.
Lula, by contrast, has taken an anti-Israel stance, having sharply criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza. He compared Israel’s conduct there to Adolf Hitler’s actions against Jews during World War II, later announcing that Brazil’s ambassador to Israel would be recalled and that Israel’s ambassador would be summoned for a reprimand.
Despite public uproar over his comments, Lula subsequently reiterated his position on social media, writing, “What the Israeli government is doing is not war, it is genocide. Children and women are being murdered."