Explaining Brazil
Explaining Brazil
The Brazilian Report
News from Brazil, by The Brazilian Report — an independent media outlet uniquely positioned to offer an insider’s view of current affairs in Brazil.
Lula re-elected, Flávio on the run
Flávio Bolsonaro refused to accept his defeat in Brazil’s presidential runoff and left the country within 24 hours of a Supreme Court order to surrender his passports. He landed in Miami with a humanitarian stay permit, raising questions about the role...
Oct 30
42 min
A coin-flip runoff
Brazil votes on Sunday, and the presidential runoff is now too close to call. A week and a half ago, Flávio Bolsonaro was the clear favorite. Since then, street mobilization and an unprecedented grassroots campaign have helped Lula close the gap. In ou...
Oct 20
37 min
Taking stock of an electoral shock
Lula finished Brazil's first round almost 2 points behind Flávio Bolsonaro, his weakest first-round result since 1998. Gustavo Ribeiro and historian James Green (Brown University) look at what went wrong for the president and what the October 25 runoff...
Oct 8
44 min
Brazil's economy is growing. So why isn't Lula polling better?
Brazilians vote on Sunday, October 4, and President Lula is asking for a fourth term on the strength of his economic record. Growth averaged 3% a year, unemployment is at a record low, and real wages are rising. His approval still sits barely above 40%...
Oct 1
39 min
Flávio Bolsonaro upsets the gods
Brazil votes on Sunday, and the final week of the campaign has turned on religion. A rumor that a Flávio Bolsonaro government would strip Our Lady of Aparecida of her title as Brazil's patron saint has spread through Catholic circles. The Bolsonaro cam...
Sep 30
27 min
How to read Brazil's  election polls
Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro are statistically tied less than two weeks before Brazil's first round, and a flood of contradictory polls is feeding claims that pollsters are rigging the race. Rafael Nishimura, director of sampling operations at the Univers...
Sep 23
1 hr 5 min
Can Brazil's Supreme Court survive an election?
For years, Brazil's Supreme Court picked fights with Congress and the presidency. This month it turned on itself. On September 15, the full court sat for more than seven hours to answer a question it has dodged for 130 years, and walked away without an...
Sep 17
41 min
Civil war at the Brazilian Supreme Court
Brazil's Supreme Court is facing what may be the worst crisis in its history. Justice André Mendonça unsealed the Banco Master investigation, exposing messages between the bank's former CEO and Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Now two factions of the court...
Sep 9
36 min
The first surprise of the 2026 election
Two polls released Monday shook the political establishment. Augusto Cury, of the small Avante party, took third place in both: 11% in Nexus's survey, 7.8% in Atlas Intel's. The numbers force rivals and analysts to take Cury seriously for the first tim...
Sep 1
38 min
What's wrong with the Brazilian Congress
Brazil's 2026 campaign is officially underway, and almost all the attention will be on the presidential race. That's a problem, because power in Brazil is increasingly won and lost in Congress — where the budget is controlled and where any president's ...
Aug 20
43 min
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