Brazilians began voting early Sunday in a presidential runoff, with right-wing Senator Flávio Bolsonaro and socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva statistically tied. Bolsonaro won the first round at the start of the month.
Nearly 160 million people are eligible to vote today, with polling stations closing at 1600 ET. A last-minute AtlasIntel survey for Bloomberg, released Saturday, showed Bolsonaro leading Lula 51% to 49%, largely in line with other final polls. The survey's margin of error was 1 percentage point.
Regular readers will remember that polls showed Lula ahead going into the first round, but Bolsonaro finished ahead with 47.03% of valid votes to Lula's 45.16%.
Goldman's chief Latin America economist, Alberto Ramos, provides the latest in his runoff Q&A (available to pro subscribers):
"The race has tightened considerably. Polls immediately after the first round gave conservative Bolsonaro a 4- to 5-point lead over left-wing incumbent President Lula in the October 25 runoff. His lead has since narrowed to 0 to 2.5 points, with one outlier, Vox, showing Lula slightly ahead. Prediction markets still favor Bolsonaro, but the odds are less lopsided than immediately after the first round."
Here is Goldman's poll-of-polls, which shows Bolsonaro's lead eroding in the final stretch (chart source: GS GIR):
