Lula’s support takes Bahia governorship dispute to the second round

A reliable Workers’ Party stronghold, the Northeast state of Bahia is going to have a runoff between ACM Neto from the right-wing party União Brasil and Jerônimo Rodrigues from Lula’s Workers’ Party. 

At 22:00, Mr. Rodrigues had 48.95 percent of the votes, showing a huge advance over the first polls, in which he had less than 25 percent of voting intentions. Mr. Neto, meanwhile, had 41.13 percent. 

While traditional institutes Datafolha and Ipec placed Mr. Rodrigues 15 points behind Mr. Neto, other polls such as Atlas Intel were already showing the rise of the Workers’ Party candidate in the final stretch of the first round.

It was not the first time that an apparent underdog has emerged in an election in Brazil’s oldest state. In fact, dark horses from the Workers’ Party won the governorship in first-round landslides in both 2016 and 2014, despite trailing in the polls for most of the campaign. 

Bahia was kind to Lula once again. With over 95 percent of ballots counted, Lula had more than 69 percent of the vote, while Bolsonaro had just over 24 percent.

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