Polymarket's "Brazil Presidential Election" market, with nearly $150 million in trading volume, now favors right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro over leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ahead of October's election. The shift follows polling data released earlier this week showing Bolsonaro pulling ahead in a hypothetical runoff, although the candidates remain statistically tied within the margin of error.
Bolsonaro took the lead on Polymarket around 8:20 a.m. ET, and by early Thursday afternoon, he stood at around 52.8% versus Lula's 44%.
On Tuesday, the BTG Pactual/Nexus survey showed that Bolsonaro had edged ahead of Lula for the first time. This comes as a deepening Supreme Court scandal strengthens the conservative challenger's campaign.
As the gap between Bolsonaro and Lula narrowed in recent weeks and the race became a toss-up, we pointed out an "explosive surge" in call open interest in the iShares MSCI Brazil ETF (EWZ).
And someone appears to be making a huge bet on just that: explosive surge in EWZ call OI https://t.co/nqFaGgms4R pic.twitter.com/uen9bXmqBw
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 8, 2026
On Thursday, Citi chief Latin America economist Ernesto Revilla told clients that Latin Am
