SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva remains the front-runner to win Brazil’s presidential election in October, a poll of voter support showed on Thursday, although incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro is gaining ground.
Lula received 47% voter support versus Bolsonaro’s 32% in the latest survey by pollster Datafolha, compared with 47% and 29% respectively in July.
In a potential second-round runoff between the two candidates, Lula would return to office with 54% of the votes against Bolsonaro’s 37%, the poll showed.
Lula, a leftist candidate and a former Brazilian president, has seen his advantage in the runoff shrink each month from the 29-point lead he had in December.
The Datafolha poll also showed that 51% of the people polled claim they would never vote for Bolsonaro, 3 percentage points below last month, while Lula’s rejection went up by 1 percentage point to 37%.
Bolsonaro has attempted to lure voters in recent months by passing a major spending package that included a welfare program for poor Brazilians and measures to tackle fuel prices, which in turn has helped inflation rates begin to slow.
His approval rate went up to 30% in August, from 28% in July, according to the poll. Meanwhile, 43% of those interviewed said they disapproved of the far right leader’s government, against the 45% recorded last month.
Datafolha interviewed 5,744 Brazilians of voting age between Tuesday and Thursday. The poll has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
(Reporting by Peter Frontini; editing by Richard Pullin and Rosalba O’Brien)