Rousseff and Silva Tied for Presidential Elections: Daily

By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – The results of two opinion polls released on Wednesday show that President Dilma Rousseff and presidential candidate Marina Silva are technically tied in first place for October’s Presidential Elections. The latest poll released by IBOPE shows President Rousseff of the PT (Workers Party) with 37 percent of voter intention while Marina Silva the PSB (Socialist Party) has 33 percent of voter intention.

Aecio Neves of the PSDB (Social Democracy Party) appears in third place with fifteen percent of the votes. The polls have a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points.

Also according to this IBOPE poll the two women would go a second round of elections in late October with Silva beating the incumbent leader with 46 percent of the votes against Rousseff’s 39 percent.

The difference between Rousseff and Silva in the Datafolha poll is even smaller, with the President holding 35 percent of voter intention to Silva’s 34 percent. In this poll, Neves is also in third place with fourteen percent of voter intention.

The poll asked voters who they would vote for if a second round of elections were to be held between Rousseff and Silva. The results also favored Silva, who would beat Rousseff, with 48 percent to the President’s 47 percent.

Silva, who was Eduardo Campos’ running mate on the PSB ticket, was thrust to the top spot after Campos died in a plane crash on August 13th. While Campos was lagging far behind Rousseff and Neves, Silva’s popularity skyrocketed after her name was announced as the party’s presidential candidate.

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