Pollster confirms Bolsonaro bounce, but Lula remains favorite

Despite Brazil’s stubborn double-digit rates for both unemployment and inflation, President Jair Bolsonaro has cut into the margins of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, according to the latest voter survey by Brazil’s biggest pollster, Datafolha.

However, results are not directly comparable to previous polls with different sets of candidates proposed to voters as many names dropped out of the race in recent months. Still, it confirms a continuing trend observed by other institutes: Lula is parked at the low-to-mid-40s, while Mr. Bolsonaro is slowly narrowing the gap between the two. Meanwhile, “third-way” candidates seem as lost as ever.

The president gained five points in so-called spontaneous polls, when voters are asked to declare their preference from the top of their heads, to 23 percent. Lula, meanwhile, saw his spontaneous voting intentions drop slightly, from 32 to 30 percent. Such polls are significant because they tend to reflect how much of the electorate has locked in on a given candidate.

Analysts have flagged these trends as voters increasingly try...