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Lula Leads Presidential Race in New CNT/MDA Poll

evening · · thread: Genial/Quaest Polls Show Divided Presidential Race Across Brazilian States

2 sources · Brazil

Who reported this

  • UOL Brazil · Centre-left · Grupo Folha
  • Gazeta do Povo Brazil · Centre-right · Grupo Paranaense de Comunicacao

What the colours mean

  • Left
  • Centre-left
  • Centre
  • Centre-right
  • Right
  • A hatched block means the outlet is affiliated with, or controlled by, a state.

Political lean describes where an outlet sits within the politics of its own country. It is never a position on a single global scale.

Political lean is comparable inside one country and not across them, which is why the bar groups by country first. Publicly funded broadcasters are not marked as state-linked.

The owner of each outlet is listed as a matter of record, not as a judgement about the outlet.

Every source for this story reports from Brazil.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva leads the race for the 2026 presidential elections according to a survey released Tuesday by the Confederação Nacional do Transporte (CNT) and conducted by the MDA institute. In a simulated second round matchup against Flávio Bolsonaro, Lula holds 48 percent of voting intentions compared to 39.1 percent for Bolsonaro. The poll also indicates that Lula would lead in second round scenarios against other candidates, including Ronaldo Caiado, Romeu Zema, Renan Santos, and Augusto Cury.

In the stimulated first round scenario, Lula leads with 42.4 percent, while Flávio Bolsonaro follows with 28.7 percent. In the spontaneous scenario, where names are not provided, Lula is the most cited candidate at 35.3 percent, followed by Flávio Bolsonaro at 22.4 percent. Regarding rejection rates, 46.2 percent of respondents stated they would not vote for Lula under any circumstances, while 54.5 percent expressed the same for Flávio Bolsonaro.

The survey was conducted between August 5 and 9, 2026, with 2,002 interviewees. It has a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points. While the center left outlet focused its coverage on the second round lead, the center right outlet provided a comprehensive breakdown of first round scenarios, rejection rates, and multiple second round matchups.

How each side framed it

Centre-left
The coverage focused primarily on the headline result of Lula leading the second round matchup.
Centre-right
The coverage provided a detailed data breakdown including first round numbers and rejection rates.

Sources

93% of the statements in this article were traced back to the source articles listed above.