6 minWorld
Lula wins Brazil runoff, dealing blow to Trump's far-right allies
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro in a runoff, a result a political scientist says undercuts Donald Trump's influence in Latin America.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won a runoff election on Sunday against Flávio Bolsonaro, the far-right son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, a result that a Brazilian political scientist says delivers a significant setback to President Donald Trump and his allies in the region. Lula won by about 4 million votes.
Carlos G. Poggio, a professor at Berea College, told Raw Story that the outcome cost Trump what he described as the «largest prize» in a conservative wave sweeping Latin America. «Lula’s victory represents a significant defeat for Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio,» Poggio said in an email. «Brazil was the biggest prize in the conservative tide sweeping Latin America.»
Poggio argued that the setback extends beyond politics. Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, had aligned himself with Trump by pledging to mine the Amazon rainforest for critical mineral deposits, which could reduce U.S. dependence on Chinese rare earth exports that China limited in 2025 in response to Trump’s tariffs. Brazil also has Latin America’s largest economy, with a GDP of $2.65 trillion according to data compiled by the independent statistics site Worldometer. «A Flávio Bolsonaro government would likely have become Trump’s most important regional ally, supporting the Trump administration’s security agenda and closer U.S. access to Brazil’s critical minerals,» Poggio said.
A Reuters report earlier this month revealed that two officials within Trump’s State Department, Darren Beattie and Ricardo Pita, had helped the Bolsonaro family since 2025. According to the report, the pair first tried to reinstate Jair Bolsonaro, who was ousted in 2022 and charged after an attempted coup that reportedly involved plans to assassinate Lula. After Jair Bolsonaro received a 27-year sentence in September 2025 for leading the coup attempt, they turned to his son. Both men reportedly advocated punitive measures against Lula, including designating Brazilian gangs as terrorist groups and sanctioning the Supreme Court justice who led investigations into Jair Bolsonaro.
Flávio Bolsonaro promised to seek amnesty for his father and for rioters who supported him, and to pursue impeachment of the Supreme Court justices who jailed them, according to The New York Times. Lula, for his part, refused to drop the coup charges against the elder Bolsonaro, a stance that won him some support but was not enough to secure victory in the first round. Lula took 45 percent of the vote to Flávio Bolsonaro’s 47 percent, which forced a runoff because neither candidate reached the 50 percent required to win outright.
Poggio believes that first-round result helped the Partido dos Trabalhadores, or Workers’ Party, rally its base. «Flávio Bolsonaro’s lead encouraged some complacency among supporters who believed the election was largely won,» Poggio said. «Lula’s defeat instead generated urgency: the PT reactivated its grassroots organization, while unions, social movements, artists, intellectuals and civil-society figures turned the runoff into a broader mobilization against the return of bolsonarismo.»
The campaign also offered voters concrete economic promises. Poggio described a package of benefits, sometimes called a «pacote de bondades» or «goodies package,» that included a 15 percent increase in Bolsa Família, the financial aid program for lower-income Brazilians, along with fuel-tax reductions, debt relief, and education and transportation initiatives. Poggio said Bolsonaro struggled to counter this message. He promised to maintain or expand Bolsa Família and other programs associated with Lula while retreating from some unpopular positions, which Poggio said allowed Lula to argue that voters could keep social protections without accepting the political and institutional risks of a Bolsonaro return.
Brazil is not the only country where voters have turned against leaders aligned with Trump. In Serbia, President Aleksandar Vučić lost control of his government to a group of academics, professionals and public figures calling themselves the Student List, who protested the government’s increasingly authoritarian measures. In April, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a self-described autocrat and staunch Trump supporter, was removed from power in a popular vote. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a reelection bid as wars in Gaza and Iran, in which Trump is also involved, continue.
Left-leaning leaders celebrated Lula’s victory on Monday. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum called it a win for democracy and for the people of Brazil. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wrote, «The global progressive resurgence has just begun.» Poggio said the result will act as a check on rightward momentum. «Lula’s victory interrupts that rightward momentum and preserves Brazil as a counterweight to Washington, committed to multilateralism, regional autonomy and relations with the Global South,» he said.
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