Lula slightly widens his lead over Bolsonaro ahead of Brazil’s first round of voting

Brazil’s former president and presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva gestures near his wife Rosangela da Silva during the “Todos Juntos pelo Rio Grande do Sul” (All together for Rio Grande do Sul) rally in Porto Alegre, Brazil, September 16 , 2022. REUTERS/Diego Vara/File photo

SAO PAULO, Sept 22 (Reuters) – Brazil’s leading presidential candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva slightly widened his lead over incumbent Jair Bolsonaro to 14 percentage points in a survey released on Thursday by pollster Datafolha, less than two weeks before the first ones on October 2 – round-robin voting.

The Datafolha poll showed Lula with 47% voter support to Bolsonaro’s 33% in the first round of the election, compared to 45% and 33% respectively in the previous poll.

In the expected runoff, Lula will garner the support of 54 percent of voters to Bolsonaro’s 38 percent, a 16-point lead, according to the poll, the same result as a week ago.

Bolsonaro’s approval rating rose to 32%, up from 30% a week ago; and still above the 22% he held in December, after which his popularity soared thanks to welfare programs and measures to tackle inflation.

His disapproval rating stood at 44 percent, the poll found, the same result as a week ago but down from the 53 percent seen in December.

Datafolha conducted 6,754 personal interviews between September 20-22. The poll has a margin of error of 2 percentage points up or down.

Reporting by Peter Frontini and Pedro Fonseca; Editing by David Alire Garcia and Christian Plumb

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