Shortly before 9 pm on Sunday evening, four hours after polls had closed in Brazil’s general election first round, it became clear that former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva would not amass enough votes to surpass the 50-percent threshold and clinch the race outright.
This immediately sparked analysis about pollsters underestimating current President Jair Bolsonaro’s support, the strong right-wing showing in Congress, and the power of incumbency bias in Brazil’s state governor races.
But, above all, it also kicked off the next phase of the campaign.
The second-round runoff between Lula and Mr. Bolsonaro is scheduled to take place in 26 days, on October 30, and the four-week extra campaign officially kicked off at 5 pm on Monday afternoon.
After a 48-hour moratorium on advertising, rallies, motorcades, and the like during the voting period, the race is well and truly back on.
Free-to-air campaign ads on radio and television will resume on Friday. For the runoff period, airtime is divided equally among the candidates. The winner of the first round has his/her ads shown first, with rules applying to...
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