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For Brazilian president Lula the news couldn't be better. The latest poll by DataFolha, released yesterday, August 22, gives him the presidency in the first round of his reelection bid on October 1st.
His main opponent, former governor of São Paulo, Geraldo Alckmin, went up on the survey, but not enough to narrow the gap that separates him from Lula, since the president went also up by 2 percentage points. It was the first election poll since the parties started the so-called free electoral propaganda on radio and TV. The president had other reason to celebrate: his administration had the best approval rate ever since DataFolha started its federal government evaluation. 52% of the Brazilian voters qualified his government as being good or very good. Two weeks ago, the same pollsters had registered a 48% approval rate. The new survey reinforces the idea that Lula is invincible and that the battle is over for Alckmin. If the elections were held now, Lula would get 49% of the votes, against 24% from Alckmin and 11% from senator Heloísa Helena. When only the valid votes are considered Lula would have enough votes to easily get the 50% of the votes plus 1, required to guarantee a first-round victory. In the previous DataFolha survey released August 8, the president appeared with 47% of the votes. While he got two points, his main opponent also went up by one percentage point, from 24% to 25%. Helena had one point deducted from her previous 12% position. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 2%. DataFolha interviewed, Monday and Tuesday (August 21 and 22), 6.279 people in 272 municipalities. Even though polls show Lula winning on the first round DataFolha simulated a second round with the president and Alckmin. In this scenario, Lula would win with 55% of the votes against 35% from his opponent. The survey brings more good news for the president: the percentage of those voters who wouldn't vote for him in any circumstance has fallen to 26. At the end of June, 31% were saying that they would never vote for Lula. This number had gone up to 32% in July and then fallen slightly to 29% at the beginning of August.
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