Lula's victory driven by falling abstention in Brazil's wealthiest cities

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's second-round victory over Senator Flávio Bolsonaro was driven by the sharpest drop in voter abstention since 2006, a shift that polls did not predict. The increased turnout was most pronounced in higher-income municipalities. In the 200 wealthiest cities, with average incomes above R$3,379, abstention fell 11.6% between the two rounds. While Bolsonaro won 185 of these municipalities, Lula's vote share there grew from 45% to 47% compared to the 2022 runoff. The decline was strongest in poorer neighborhoods within these wealthy cities, such as Barreiro in Belo Horizonte, where abstention fell 16.5%. In the 200 poorest municipalities, with average incomes below R$1,102, abstention fell only 2.5%, and Lula won all of them, though his support dipped from 81% to 78%. Analysts note that structural abstention persists in poor rural areas due to mobility challenges, and some small northeastern municipalities have more registered voters than residents, a practice linked to local political manipulation.