Brazil’s far-right candidate gets a boost in latest poll

Bloomberg

Brazil’s far-right presidential candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, received a significant boost in the latest opinion poll published just days ahead of Sunday’s general elections.
The former Army captain rose four points to 31 percent in the Ibope survey released Monday evening, compared with 27 percent in the last poll Sept. 26. His nearest rival, Fernando Haddad, from the leftwing Workers’ Party, remained at 21 percent. In a second-round scenario the two candidates were tied at 42 percent.
If none of the 13 candidates running for the presidency win an outright majority of valid votes on October 7, the two leaders will go to a runoff October 28.
The contest looks almost certain to pit Bolsonaro against Haddad. Over the past weekend, tens of thousands of Brazilians took part in rival demonstrations across the country both for and against Bolsonaro, who has attracted both devoted support and implacable hostility with his incendiary rhetoric and nostalgia for military rule.
The survey of 3,010 people was conducted in 208 municipalities on September 29-30 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. The Ibope poll—BR08650/2018—showed Bolsonaro still has the highest rejection rating of any candidate, at 44 percent, but the survey also highlighted a surge in opposition to Haddad, who saw his rejection rating rise from 27 percent to 38 percent.