Brazil is heading to a presidential runoff between incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, and Bolsonaro is now the clear favorite.
Kalshi's Brazil Presidential election winner market shows Bolsonaro leading at 83% followed by Lula, at 18%. Bolsonaro's price increased 19 percentage points following Sunday's election, while Lula's fell 18 points.
Bolsonaro was already favored to become the next President. However, Lula was favored to win round one before Bolsonaro’s surprise upset.
Bolsonaro and Lula will face each other in a runoff on Oct. 25.
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Bolsonaro wins first round
The Guardian reported that Bolsonaro finished first with 47.03% of valid votes, followed by Lula with 45.16%.
“Bolsonaro will go into the second round as strong favorite and is likely to be boosted by the migration of votes from the election’s other right-wing candidates, which included Ronaldo Caiado, who secured 2.1%, and Renan Santos, who won 2.2%,” The Guardian reported.
Flávio Bolsonaro wasn't the only member of the Bolsonaro family to win office Sunday. Flávio's brother Carlos Bolsonaro and their mother, former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro, also won Senate seats, while Flávio's younger brother Jair Renan Bolsonaro won a seat in the lower house.
Right-wing candidates also made significant gains in Brazil's congressional elections. Thirty-four of the 54 Senate seats contested Sunday were won by right-wing candidates.
The BBC reported that Jair Bolsonaro was unable to run this year after Brazil's electoral court barred him from seeking office for eight years in 2023. He was later convicted of plotting a coup following his 2022 election defeat.
“He had been accused of undermining Brazilian democracy by falsely claiming that the electronic ballots used were vulnerable to hacking and fraud,” The BBC reported.
The Associated Press also reported earlier this year that Jair Bolsonaro is also serving a sentence for an attempted coup. He was later permitted to serve his sentence under house arrest on health grounds.
The BBC also reported that Jair Bolsonaro was originally sentenced to a 27-year sentence for plotting a coup. Lula tried to veto a bill to reduce Bolsonaro's sentence but Brazil's Congress, backed by its conservative majority, reduced his sentence to two years with “a law changing how prison sentences are calculated.”
CNN also reported that Flávio Bolsonaro's campaign “performed better than his father did in the first round four years ago.”
“The crucial battleground was the Southeast, where nearly 40% of the electorate lives,” CNN reported. “There, Flávio won São Paulo and Minas Gerais. His victory in Minas Gerais carries particular symbolic weight: the state has voted for the winner in every presidential election since 1989 when Brazil held its first direct presidential election after military rule.”
Bolsonaro and Lula now have three weeks to consolidate support ahead of the Oct. 25 runoff. Despite finishing less than two percentage points apart in the first round, Kalshi’s market currently gives Bolsonaro a substantial advantage at 83% to Lula’s 18%.
The takeaway:
Kalshi markets now predict
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