Polls: Caiado leads his home state and would beat Lula in a runoff, but trails nationally
New polls on Brazil's 2026 presidential race show President Lula leading nationally, while Goiás governor Ronaldo Caiado dominates his home state and would edge out the incumbent in a hypothetical runoff.
National poll puts Lula ahead
A poll by institute Real Time Big Data (RTB), released Tuesday, September 1, shows President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) leading the first round of Brazil's 2026 presidential race with 38%, followed by senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) with 29–30%, depending on whether businessman Pablo Marçal is included as a candidate. Writer Augusto Cury (Avante) polled 10–11%, confirming a rise already noted a day earlier, on August 31, by the Nexus and AtlasIntel polls. Renan Santos (Missão) received 6–7%, Goiás state governor Ronaldo Caiado (PSD) polled 4%, and Romeu Zema (Novo) got 2%. RTB interviewed 2,000 people by phone between August 27 and 31; the margin of error is 2 percentage points with a 95% confidence level. The poll is registered with Brazil's top electoral court (TSE) under code BR-03490/2026.
In a hypothetical runoff between Lula and Caiado, the same poll shows Caiado ahead, 45% to 43% — the only challenger to lead Lula in RTB's runoff scenarios. Against Bolsonaro, Lula is tied at 44% each.
Caiado dominates his home state
A separate series of state-level polls by institute Quaest, commissioned by broadcaster Globo and its affiliates and released between August 24 and 29 across 24 states and the Federal District, found that Caiado is the only candidate numerically leading in his own state, Goiás, where he serves as governor. There he polls 32%, ahead of Bolsonaro's 27% (a technical tie given the margin of error) and Lula's 20%.
Elsewhere, Caiado's numbers are far more modest, typically between 2% and 5%. According to Quaest, Lula leads outside the margin of error in eight states and Bolsonaro in seven, while the two are tied in nine others — including Brazil's three largest electorates, São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro. The margin of error is 2 points for the São Paulo poll and 3 points for the rest.
As GZH notes, the RBS media group does not conduct its own election polls or publish surveys commissioned by parties or candidates; for its 2026 coverage it contracted Quaest, a research firm founded in 2016 and based in Belo Horizonte.
