President Jair Bolsonaro and leftist rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are in a dead heat in Brazil’s election Sunday with 73% of the vote counted, a stronger-than-expected showing by the incumbent that points to a likely runoff between the two on Oct. 30.
Lula has 46% of the votes compared with 45% for Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain, the electoral court said as of 8:10 p.m. in Brasilia. Even if Lula has overtaken the president as votes from the northern states that are his bastions come in, it may not be enough to deliver him the 50% he needs for the first-round victory some opinion polls had pointed to.
Carlos Melo, a political scientist at the Insper University in Sao Paulo, said initial results showed the strength of Bolsonaro’s base.
