A leader who stood up to U.S. President Donald Trump just won an election in Latin America’s biggest country, reversing a trend of new right-wing governments in the region over the past two years.
Incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, having narrowly lost to Flávio Bolsonaro in the first round of voting on Oct. 5, 2026, staged a remarkable comeback on Oct. 25. He erased the deficit and won the all-important runoff election by more than 3.5 percentage points – more than 4 million votes.
