President Rousseff pulls ahead, but Brazil election still ‘too close to call’

Incumbent President Dilma Rousseff pulled ahead again in a new poll ahead of Brazil’s presidential election and she appears to be the favorite to win Sunday’s runoff although the vote is still too close to call. The Datafolha poll, released on Wednesday, was the fourth in three days to show that Rousseff is numerically in front of her rival Aecio Neves, the financial markets’ favorite who has promised business-friendly policies to revive a sluggish economy. Brazil’s stocks and currency sold off for a second straight session on Tuesday after polls indicated that Neves is losing momentum in a race that he appeared to be leading last week.

In this market environment, deleveraging will take longer than anticipated.

Brazil’s leftist incumbent leader, President Dilma Rousseff

Despite pessimism on financial markets, Brazilians surveyed by Datafolha were more optimistic about the future of their economy, which could be helping Rousseff, the polling firm said. In the new survey, Rousseff’s share of voter support has risen to 47 percent, from 46 percent in the previous Datafolha poll published on Monday. Support for Neves was unchanged at 43 percent. While Rousseff has widened her numerical lead to four percentage points, the difference between them is still within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Excluding undecided voters, spoiled and blank survey responses, Rousseff has 52 percent against 48 percent for Neves, the poll showed, the same result as in Monday’s poll.

Rousseff Americas