Oct 20, 2026 · 37 min · 10 segments
Brazil votes on Sunday, and the presidential runoff is now too close to call. A week and a half ago, Flávio Bolsonaro was the clear favorite. Since then, street mobilization and an unprecedented…
Gustavo RibeiroHost
James GreenGuest
I think the most pressing issue that we have to talk in this episode is the first debate between Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro.
But before we do, let's talk a little bit about the state of the race, because once the first round was over, I think everyone assumed that this was Flavio Bolsonaro's race to lose.
I do believe he's still the favorite, but two weeks ago or one and a half week ago, he was the head and shoulders favorite.
And now the picture seems... way more blurry than before i think lula especially over the past week has mustered the kind of online campaigning that he has never that the workers party has never done for the past eight years and it has shown in the polls we we are seeing uh the polls starting to show uh a very tight race uh tighter than ever actually
And so I think that panic, first, it provoked a series of spontaneous, almost organized demonstrations and marches, which have since then been organized.
But also people really writing down names of possible people that they could convince to vote who didn't vote in the first round or who are not sure about who they want to vote for in the second round.
And I've never seen at any time since I started observing the elections in Brazil in 1994 this kind of grassroots systematic method a lot methodical uh attempts to really guarantee votes in the second round and to your
point and i'm sorry but to your point if we're just talking numbers the left has never managed with as many people uh over the past at least two and a half decades as they did over this past few days.
So yes, it is kind of remarkable because some people were trying to compare what happened now to the sort of mobilization, like not him, protests against Jair Bolsonaro in 2018, but those were tiny protests next to the demonstrations that we saw over the past week.
think the people that I talked to lamented in the past when there were difficulties, especially in the election that you just referred to.
But what I see differently now is people actually very proactively working on trying to improve Lula's voting in the second round.
they seem to be mobilizing people and they seem to be reaching out to people and trying to convince them to consider changing their vote.
Not just going to demonstrations, but actually doing that grassroots work, which rarely I think has happened recently in Brazilian elections.
And we also have to always consider the fact that in the past, the polls have never fully captured Bolsonaro's support, his strength, his backing in the far right.
And so, again, the polls could be off and misjudging a 2% advantage that Flavia might have at the end of the day.
I think the most pressing issue that we have to talk in this episode is the first debate between Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro.
But before we do, let's talk a little bit about the state of the race, because once the first round was over, I think everyone assumed that this was Flavio Bolsonaro's race to lose.
I do believe he's still the favorite, but two weeks ago or one and a half week ago, he was the head and shoulders favorite.
And now the picture seems... way more blurry than before i think lula especially over the past week has mustered the kind of online campaigning that he has never that the workers party has never done for the past eight years and it has shown in the polls we we are seeing uh the polls starting to show uh a very tight race uh tighter than ever actually
And so I think that panic, first, it provoked a series of spontaneous, almost organized demonstrations and marches, which have since then been organized.
But also people really writing down names of possible people that they could convince to vote who didn't vote in the first round or who are not sure about who they want to vote for in the second round.
And I've never seen at any time since I started observing the elections in Brazil in 1994 this kind of grassroots systematic method a lot methodical uh attempts to really guarantee votes in the second round and to your
point and i'm sorry but to your point if we're just talking numbers the left has never managed with as many people uh over the past at least two and a half decades as they did over this past few days.
So yes, it is kind of remarkable because some people were trying to compare what happened now to the sort of mobilization, like not him, protests against Jair Bolsonaro in 2018, but those were tiny protests next to the demonstrations that we saw over the past week.
think the people that I talked to lamented in the past when there were difficulties, especially in the election that you just referred to.
But what I see differently now is people actually very proactively working on trying to improve Lula's voting in the second round.
they seem to be mobilizing people and they seem to be reaching out to people and trying to convince them to consider changing their vote.
Not just going to demonstrations, but actually doing that grassroots work, which rarely I think has happened recently in Brazilian elections.
And we also have to always consider the fact that in the past, the polls have never fully captured Bolsonaro's support, his strength, his backing in the far right.
And so, again, the polls could be off and misjudging a 2% advantage that Flavia might have at the end of the day.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.