Bolsonaro won 47.03 per cent and will face Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in a runoff. The U.S. president predicted a close contest.
U.S. President Donald Trump called Flávio Bolsonaro’s first-round result in Brazil’s presidential election a “very big victory,” while acknowledging that the margin was narrow. Bolsonaro finished first with 47.03 per cent and will face incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who received 45.16 per cent, in a runoff.
Trump answered reporters’ questions outside the White House on Monday, Oct. 5, a day after the first round. He called Bolsonaro’s showing a “close, but a very big victory” and separately said the runoff would be “very close.”
The previous week, Trump had said he was following Brazil’s election closely and considered it very important. After the first-round count, he praised how quickly the votes were tallied. In a Truth Social post, he said 125 million people had voted that day and the results appeared immediately after polls closed, “ON THE SAME DAY.”
Trump then compared Brazil’s vote count with the U.S. process and criticized elections in the United States. His comments were a political reaction to the result, not an official assessment by Brazilian electoral authorities. The first round was held Oct. 4. Bolsonaro and Lula advanced to a runoff because neither candidate won more than half of the vote.