Lula Sees Very Tight Brazil Election as Bolsonaro Grows in Polls

(Bloomberg) -- Leftist former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva considers that Brazil’s election is “very tight” and will be decided by those who didn’t show up to vote in the first round earlier this month.

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“A lot of Brazilians have already made up their minds and the number of people we need to convince is growing smaller,” he told reporters on Thursday in Rio de Janeiro. “We are fighting for the abstention vote.”

Recent opinion polls show President Jair Bolsonaro is chipping away at Lula’s lead in the run-up to the Oct. 30 runoff vote. An Exame/Ideia survey published earlier in the day had both candidates statistically tied while a Datafolha poll released Wednesday showed Lula’s lead tightening by 2 percentage points in a period of four days.

More than 30 million Brazilians didn’t vote on Oct. 2, or nearly 21% of the electorate. Abstention rates tend to be higher among Lula’s supporters, according to pollsters.

Read More: Bolsonaro Is Cutting Into Lula’s Lead Ahead of Runoff Vote

“Opinion polls serve as an alert for us,” Lula said, adding that Bolsonaro has a “very powerful fake news machine” working against him.

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