Brazil Emerges as Key Test for Latin America’s Rising Conservative Movement

Brazil’s roughly 158 million voters could reinforce Latin America’s conservative shift on Sunday, with the region’s largest country potentially choosing conservative Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro as its next president.

Bolsonaro’s unexpectedly strong showing in the first-round vote three weeks ago upended polling expectations. Surveys had projected incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, widely known as Lula, to finish ahead by single digits. Instead, Bolsonaro captured 47% of the vote to Lula’s 45%. Because neither candidate secured a majority, the contest advanced to a runoff.

Brazil’s runoff comes amid a sustained series of right-wing victories across Central and South America, a trend that began with the 2023 election of Argentine libertarian outsider Javier Milei.

The conservative momentum accelerated in 2025, when voters in Ecuador, Bolivia, Honduras and Chile elected right-leaning presidents.

In 2026, Keiko Fujimori narrowly defeated a left-wing opponent to claim Peru’s presidency. More recently in Colombia, conservative attorney Abelardo de la Espriella defeated left-wing Sen. Ivan Cepeda.

Bolsonaro-aligned congressional candidates also performed strongly. Their gains are expected to produce one of Brazil’s most conservative congresses in years—one that could either advance Bolsonaro’s agenda or block Lula’s priorities.

The rivals faced off Friday night in their final debate in Rio de Janeiro. Questions were structured around Brazil’s five geographic regions, and the discussion included several sharp personal exchanges. Still, the encounter appeared unlikely to significantly alter the dynamics of what remains a closely fought race.

President Donald Trump has cited the results as evidence that voters are embracing his tough stance on security, crime and migration, as well as endorsing his new Shield of the Americas initiative.

Compared with the start of Trump’s second term, the administration now has significantly more close allies across the region.

The broader question, however, is why Latin America appears to be turning so decisively away from the left and progressive politics.

Many of these victories have come by slim margins. Brazil offers a clear example: Lula defeated Jair Bolsonaro in 2022 by only 1.8 percentage points. Although polarization remains intense throughout much of Latin America, the region’s rightward movement is difficult to dismiss.

Analysts point to mounting public frustration over safety and security, along with a growing willingness to support plans for a much larger police and military presence to confront violent crime and drug trafficking. In that environment, progressive parties appear to be losing ground.

Economic pressures have compounded the problem. Left-wing parties have struggled to turn persistent worries about inflation and household finances into political momentum, while working- and middle-class families face higher prices for food, housing and energy.

The legacy of Jair Bolsonaro is another central issue in the campaign. Flavio Bolsonaro has promised to secure his father’s release. The former president is currently serving a 27-year sentence under house arrest after being accused of plotting a coup following the 2022 election.

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Lula, meanwhile, was sentenced to 12 years in prison on corruption charges tied to the notorious Operation Car Wash investigation. Brazil’s Supreme Court later freed him on a technicality, allowing him to return to politics and ultimately win the 2022 presidential election.

Bolsonaro has held a narrow lead in recent polling and enters the runoff with important structural advantages. Chief among them is the support of three of the four other leading candidates who failed to qualify for the second round.

Self-help author Augusto Cury, former Goias Governor Ronaldo Caiado, and former Minas Gerais Governor Romeu Zema all officially backed Bolsonaro in the second round.

Entrepreneur Renan Santos, candidate for the Mission Party, declined to endorse either candidate. However, as his political movement is characterized as free-market and libertarian, these voters are also more likely to trend to Bolsonaro.

Thus, Lula needs to win a significant majority of first round voters who backed right-wing or center-right candidates. It’s a daunting, but not impossible, proposition.

The entire election may hinge on voters who are voting against a candidate, as much as for a candidate.

Another question looming over the election: has Lula finally worn out his welcome with the Brazilian electorate?

This will be Lula’s seventh time in 40 years appearing on a presidential ballot: he lost elections in 1989, 1994, 1998, won in 2002, 2006, and 2022.

Lula famously promised to serve only one term when he ran to oust Jair Bolsonaro in 2022. 

On October 25, 2022, just five days before the last second round presidential election, he posted on his official X account: “If elected, I will be a single-term president.”

It was a promise that he did not keep.

Various polls have shown that voters are not happy with the course of Lula’s third term, and even a sizable percentage of Lula backers in 2022 responded with pessimism on the prospect of an unprecedented fourth term.

However, a large percentage of the Brazilian electorate also consistently rejects the prospect of voting for another Bolsonaro for president.

Lula is unquestionably the dominant figure in Brazilian politics over the past half-century. But will his magnetism and charisma be enough to overcome the right-wing resurgence sweeping the continent?