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Brazil runoff results: Lula wins a fourth term, overturning Flávio Bolsonaro's first-round lead

An electronic voting machine screen reads 'FIM' above the keypad, with the date 25/10/2026 at the top of the screen, during an election-day integrity test. Photograph: Leobark Rodrigues/Secom/TSE.
An electronic voting machine shows "FIM" (end) during an integrity test of the machines on October 25, 2026, second-round voting day. Photograph: Leobark Rodrigues/Secom/TSE. Cropped. Source page. Marked public domain by the TSE on that page (Public Domain Mark 1.0).

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party (PT) has won Brazil's presidential runoff against Flávio Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party (PL), reversing a first-round defeat three weeks earlier. In the count of the Tribunal Superior Eleitoral (TSE), Brazil's electoral court, stamped 23:26:38 Brasília time on Sunday, October 25 (22:26 ET), with all 499,248 polling sections counted, Lula had 64,256,232 votes, 51.79% of valid votes. Flávio had 59,826,041, 48.21%. The TSE file marks Lula as elected.

Lula's lead is 4,430,191 votes. G1 reported that the TSE's system confirmed Lula's victory at 21:08 Brasília time, with about 97% of sections counted.

Reuters described it as an unprecedented fourth term. Reuters and the Associated Press said he is the first candidate since the return to democracy in the 1980s to win after finishing second in the first round. The new term begins on January 5, 2027, the AP and the BBC reported. Lula turns 81 on Tuesday.

The TSE count

All figures below are from the TSE results files: the runoff file stamped 25/10/2026 23:26:38, with 100% of sections counted, and the final first-round file stamped 05/10/2026 12:51:05, both Brasília time.

In this file the TSE lists Lula as "Eleito" (elected) and Flávio as "Não eleito" (not elected).

How a 2.2 million-vote deficit turned into a 4.4 million-vote lead

On October 4 Flávio led Lula by 2,224,965 votes. Eliminated candidates, led by Cury, Renan Santos and Ronaldo Caiado, took 9,316,747 valid votes between them. On October 25 those votes were up for grabs, and so were the voters who had stayed home or spoiled their ballot.

The TSE totals show three things moved at once:

Of that combined pool of about 14.1 million votes, Lula gained 10,376,694 and Flávio 3,721,538. Lula took about 73.6% of the finalists' combined increase. His gain alone was 1,059,947 votes larger than everything the eliminated candidates received on October 4.

The state results files point the same way. Lula gained more votes than Flávio in every one of the 27 states and among voters abroad. The Southeast accounted for about 46% of Lula's increase and the Northeast for about 29%. In São Paulo, Lula added 2,613,861 votes to Flávio's 1,217,155, though Flávio still won the state. Minas Gerais was the only state to change hands: Flávio won it in the first round by 5,777,548 to 5,188,936, and Lula led the runoff there by 6,338,200 to 6,235,259 with 99.83% counted. Flávio received fewer votes than in the first round in six states: Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Maranhão, Roraima and Tocantins. The state files were stamped between 19:18 and 22:02 Brasília time, so state sums differ slightly from the national file.

What these numbers cannot show: the TSE publishes totals, not individual voters' choices. The figures show that Lula's net gain exceeded the eliminated candidates' whole vote, but not whether those candidates' voters went to him, to Flávio, or stayed home while new voters turned out. DW reported that pollsters said higher-than-expected turnout appeared to have helped Lula. That is consistent with the totals, but the totals alone do not prove it.

Voting hours were extended in some places

Supreme Court (STF) justice Cristiano Zanin extended voting to 19:00 in places where voting machines had not closed at 17:00, the court said in a note at 18:28 Brasília time. The decision came on a complaint from the Coligação Brasil Pronto Pra Mais against the Bahia municipalities of Salvador, Feira de Santana and Lauro de Freitas, which had reduced public bus services on election day. The STF said both campaigns in the runoff had alleged problems with voter transport.

G1's timeline says the PT asked the TSE to look at transport in the three Bahia cities, and Flávio's campaign asked the TSE to extend voting in São Paulo, Paraná and Santa Catarina because of rain, flooding and power cuts. Zanin first ordered the extension nationwide just after 17:00. At 17:49 TSE president Kassio Nunes Marques told sections still open to stay open until 19:00, and Zanin then limited the order to those sections. The TSE said in a note at 18:44 (updated 19:02) that voting would continue only where it had not ended by 17:00, and that it would resume publishing results after 19:00.

The AP said it was unclear how many polling stations stayed open after the scheduled closing time. Neither court has published that number.

What Flávio Bolsonaro and the PL have said

Flávio Bolsonaro has refused to accept the result and says he will ask the courts to annul the election. In a statement on Sunday night, he said: "É impossível reconhecer o resultado das eleições no contexto como essas coisas aconteceram. Nós vamos usar o nosso jurídico, vamos pedir a anulação dessas eleições" ("It is impossible to recognise the election result in the context in which these things happened. We will use our legal team, we will ask for these elections to be annulled"), according to the full transcript and video published by Poder360. He said Zanin, whom he called Lula's former lawyer, had changed "a regra do jogo no meio do jogo" ("the rules of the game in the middle of the game"), that the extension caused "uma quebra total de isonomia" ("a total breach of equality") between voters in different states, and that PL inspectors were removed from the secure counting room after the decision. Poder360 reported that he presented no documents to support claims of irregularities in the result. Reuters reported that he called Zanin's ruling "unacceptable". As of 04:45 ET on October 26, we found no report from the TSE, Reuters, the AP or the main Brazilian outlets that a formal petition to annul the result had been filed, and his X account had no posts after the polls closed.

TSE president Kassio Nunes Marques, speaking after Lula's win was confirmed, said: "não houve nenhuma alteração advinda da decisão judicial" ("there was no change arising from the court decision"), Folha de S.Paulo reported. He said the TSE had blocked receipt of voting-machine reports during the extension so that no one at the court could see results, and that it then resumed the count, Folha and the Chamber of Deputies' news agency reported. The AP reported that Nunes Marques, who was appointed to the Supreme Court by Jair Bolsonaro, said the extension did not affect the results, and that it is not clear whether Flávio's complaint could meet the legal threshold to annul them. João Pedro Pádua, a law professor at Fluminense Federal University, told the AP: "The extension of voting hours is unusual, but for it to invalidate the elections, the candidate would have to prove that it affected voters' ability to freely express their will."

Earlier in the evening, before the result was known, PL federal deputy Nikolas Ferreira said Flávio's campaign could contest the result if he lost, UOL reported. Asked whether the PL would question a defeat, he said: "tem alguma dúvida?" ("is there any doubt?"). The AP said Ferreira noted that Zanin is Lula's former lawyer, and that the extension "may trigger legal action by Bolsonaro". Reuters said the reaction of Flávio's allies to the extension signals that the result will be contested. Senator-elect Marcel van Hattem called the extension a "golpe" (coup) and said he would file an impeachment request against Zanin, UOL reported.

In a September interview with TV Globo's Jornal Nacional, as transcribed by fact-checker Agência Lupa, Flávio said: "vou respeitar o resultado das eleições" ("I will respect the election result").

What others report

What comes next: analysis

This section is analysis. It rests on the sources named and on the Constitution, not on results that are already in.

Congress. The Congress elected on October 4 takes office in February 2027. Reuters reported that the PL and allied parties could control more than 280 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and up to 50 of the Senate's 81 seats. Under the Constitution, removing a president needs two-thirds of the Chamber to open the case and two-thirds of the Senate (54 senators) to convict; amending the Constitution needs three-fifths of each house (49 senators). On Reuters' upper estimate of 50 senators, the right would just clear the Senate's amendment threshold but would be four short of the number needed to convict a president. Allied parties do not always vote as a bloc. Oliver Stuenkel of the Getulio Vargas Foundation told Reuters that Lula "is likely to be a lame duck from the start".

Markets. Brazilian markets had not opened at the time of this count, and we have no trading data. Reuters reported that public debt is above 82% of GDP and that Goldman Sachs expects modest progress at most on spending. How the real and Brazilian stocks react on Monday is not yet known.

The United States and China. Reuters reported that Lula warned a Flávio government would hand Brazil's sovereignty to President Donald Trump, and wrote that Trump's State Department had led a campaign to return the Bolsonaros to power. The BBC reported that Trump did not directly endorse Flávio, that Washington wants to reduce China's influence in the hemisphere, and that Lula is widely seen as China-friendly. The AP said the result leaves Brazil positioned to remain independent of the US. Our reading: a Lula win likely keeps Brazil's current balance between Washington and Beijing, but how the US government responds has not been announced.

What we don't know

Context

The first-round count of October 4, with Flávio ahead: Brazil election first round results.

Sources

Three weeks ago Lula was 2.2 million votes behind. Turnout rose, fewer ballots were spoiled, and he took nearly three in every four of the extra votes won by the two finalists, finishing 4.4 million ahead.

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