BRAZIL — With approximately 22% of Brazil’s ballot boxes (urnas) counted domestically, Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) has opened a sizable early lead over President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) in Sunday’s presidential election.

As of the latest update, Flávio has 51.07% of valid votes counted (roughly 12.9 million votes), compared to Lula’s 41.82% (about 10.32 million votes), according to Brazil’s electoral authority, the TSE, which continues to totalize results from regional centers nationwide.

A Reversal From Overseas Votes

Bolsonaro is performing better than expected, following the domestic numbers which mark a sharp swing from the earlier overseas-only count, where Brazilian voters abroad — a smaller, historically more Lula-friendly bloc — had favored the incumbent by a wide margin, 53.1% to 37.2%.

That gap has narrowed and flipped as votes from mainland polling stations begin to dominate the tally.

Caution Urged on Early Numbers

Brazilian election officials and analysts caution against reading too much into results this early in the count. With roughly six in eight ballot boxes still to be tabulated, the geographic mix of reporting regions can skew partial totals — regions that report first are not necessarily representative of the national electorate.

Pre-election polling from Datafolha, Quaest, and AtlasIntel had consistently shown Lula leading or statistically tied with Flávio heading into Sunday’s vote, making this early reversal notable but far from determinative.

Under Brazilian law, if no candidate clears 50% of valid votes (excluding blank and null ballots), the race proceeds to a runoff between the top two finishers on October 25 — a scenario that has occurred in every presidential election since 2002 except 2006, 2014, and 2018.