Lula Widens Gap Over Bolsonaro to 15 Points: Brazil Poll

Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2011) slightly widened his lead over the current president, Jair Bolsonaro, compared to last week, according to the Ipec poll released on Monday.

Lula advanced two points and went from 44 to 46 percent of voting intentions, while Bolsonaro remained stable at 31 percent, so the distance between the two is now 15 points.

Behind are Labor's Ciro Gomes (who fell one point and has seven percent of support) and center-right Senator Simone Tebet, stable at four percent.

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The poll also shows that Lula could already win in the first round since discounting blank and null votes, he would have 51 percent of the votes.

Brazilian electoral justice determines that if a candidate has half of the valid votes plus one, it is unnecessary to go to a runoff.

The hypothesis of a victory in the first round reappears after weeks in which the polls did not project it. However, it is not entirely reliable because the survey's margin of error is two points up and down.

In an eventual second round, Lula would have 53 percent of the votes (one point more than last week), while Bolsonaro remains stable at 36 percent.

Ipec interviewed 2,512 people between September 9 and 11 in 158 municipalities throughout Brazil.