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The Stakes Are High in Brazil’s Upcoming Election

By
Alex MacArthur

During Jair Bolsonaro’s term as president, he faced a liberal establishment that acted as a bulwark against his worst excesses. If his son Flávio beats Lula in the presidential election, he will encounter much less resistance from state institutions.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva speaks during a campaign rally in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on September 23, 2026.

Lula’s third term has seen millions lifted from poverty and unemployment remain steady. But right-wing media, American meddling, and persistent inflation have given Flávio Bolsonaro an opening in the upcoming election. (Mauro Pimentel / AFP via Getty Images)

For a time this summer, Brazil’s presidential election seemed Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s to lose, and Latin America’s largest democracy appeared poised to hold its ground while right-wing candidates triumphed in Colombia, Peru, Honduras, Chile, and Panama, and the Left lost its long hold on Bolivia.

Before, the race had been steadily tightening between the eighty-year-old president and his forty-five-year-old challenger, Flávio Bolsonaro, the blandly affable, lacquered version of his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving a twenty-seven-year sentence for plotting a coup after his defeat. Even before Flávio’s candidacy was announced, polls had put Lula and Jair neck and neck in a hypothetical runoff, though the elder Bolsonaro was already ankle monitor–bound and barred from candidacy.

Brazil With an S

But Lula’s campaign was jolted back to life in July 2025, when President Donald Trump, following lobbying by Flávio’s brother, Eduardo, intervened on behalf of the embattled former president. Eduardo — a Texas-based, Steve Bannon–linked convicted criminal — urged American pressure in the name of Brazil’s “political prisoners,” and soon Trump announced 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian imports, followed by financial sanctions on Alexandre de Moraes, the supreme court justice overseeing Bolsonaro’s trial.

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