Polls Show Right-Wing Bolsonaro Still Ahead in Brazil

By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A new poll on voter intention for presidential candidates taken in Brazil, in the aftermath of the attack on right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro, shows the candidate winning more support for his presidential bid, while four other candidates are technically tied for second place, according to the Ibope Institute.

According to the survey, front-runner Bolsonaro has 26 percent of voter intention, followed by a technical tie for second place between candidates Ciro Gomes, with eleven percent, Marina Silva and Geraldo Alckmin, both with nine percent, and Fernando Haddad, with eight percent.

Although if Bolsonaro remains in front of October’s presidential race, he also continues to have the highest rejection rate, 41 percent.

“I would never vote for him because of the all the things he is against, like LBGT rights, arms control and women’s rights,” graduate student Larissa Silva told The Rio Times. “The guy will push us back at least twenty years in terms of social justice.”

In comparison to a poll taken between September 1st and 3rd by Ibope, two candidates rose in their voter intention: Bolsonaro, from twenty-two to twenty six percent and Haddad, from six to eight percent.

Two candidates fell (Gomes from 12 to 11 percent and Silva from 12 to 9 percent) while Alckmin remained steady at nine percent of voter intention.

The poll interviewed 2002 persons between September 8th and 10th, two days after candidate Bolsonaro was stabbed during a rally in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais. The candidate is in stable condition at a São Paulo hospital, after undergoing surgery to repair his upper and lower intestines.

The percentage of voters stating they would annul their votes or cast blank votes dropped from 21 percent, from a poll taken in the first days of September, to nineteen percent.

Undecided voters or those who did not declare their vote remained at seven percent.