Lula wins Brazil vote, Bolsonaro fights

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won reelection in Brazil’s presidential runoff on Sunday.

Lula secured more than 64 million votes compared to just under 60 million for his opponent, Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro. This margin of nearly 4 percent marks the incumbent’s fourth non-consecutive term, which begins on Jan. 5, 2027.

The victory relied on a surge of 14.1 million voters in the second round. Analysts estimate that three-quarters of these new participants backed Lula. His campaign leveraged a digital strategy led by lawmaker André Janones, whose WhatsApp channel, “Lula's Army,” gathered almost 11 million users.

Flávio Bolsonaro has formally challenged the results. He plans to request an annulment of the election following a last-minute extension of voting hours. The extension was requested by both candidates to accommodate transportation issues in Lula’s strongholds and heavy rains in Bolsonaro’s southern base. A Supreme Court justice approved the change minutes before polls were set to close at 5 p.m.

President Donald Trump joined the dispute on Monday. He suggested without evidence that the vote was rigged. “Elections have to be indisputable and it looked very bad to me,” Trump told reporters before flying to Mississippi. He added that the tabulation process had a bad look.

Brazilian institutions have largely recognized the outcome. Kassio Nunes, president of the electoral authority and a Supreme Court appointee of Jair Bolsonaro, confirmed Lula’s victory on Sunday. Brian Winter, a Brazil analyst for Americas Quarterly, noted that key power brokers are closing ranks behind Lula, making an annulment legally difficult.

The election process faced technical disruptions but maintained its electronic security. Brazil has used electronic voting machines since the 1990s, a system that has rarely detected fraud. The current tally was delayed by the sudden extension, which many polling stations learned about only while wrapping up.

Lula faces a right-wing Congress where Bolsonaro’s party holds the most seats. Flávio Bolsonaro, who remains a senator until January, visited his father, Jair Bolsonaro, who is under house arrest for a coup attempt. The former president is serving a 27-year sentence and had previously contested his 2022 loss to Lula.

Voter turnout surged in wealthier metropolitan centers, but Lula saw his highest gains in lower-income municipalities. The second round recorded the fewest abstentions in history, reversing a record for non-voters set in the first round. A 26-year-old maintenance worker in Brasilia, Jorge Henrique Oliveira Sena, cited a personal connection to Lula as his reason for voting after abstaining in the first round.