Rousseff and Neves still tied in opinion polls

With only a few days to go ahead of the election runoff next Sunday (Oct. 26), two opinion polls released Monday (20), Datafolha and Vox Populi, show Brazil's presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff (Workers' Party, PT) with 46% of the vote, and Aécio Neves (Brazilian Social Democracy Party, PSDB), with 43%. Given the sample margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, the two candidates are considered to be tied.

This is the first time since the first round – when 41.59% of valid votes were cast for Rousseff, and 33.55% for Aécio Neves – that a Datafolha opinion poll has found Rousseff with better runoff figures than Neves. In their previous poll, Rousseff had had 43% of voting intentions, compared to Neves's 45%.

Also as part of the latest Datafolha survey released Monday, blank and spoiled votes totaled 5%, whereas 6% of respondents were undecided or declined to answer. Considering valid votes only (excluding blank, spoiled, undecided votes, and declined answers), Rousseff would have 52% of the vote, and Neves, 48%. Datafolha polled 4,389 voters in 257 municipalities, at a confidence level of 95%.

The survey conducted by Vox Populi had all the same results, except for the rate of respondents who either had not decided who they are voting for or declined to answer – a total 5%. But unlike Datafolha,Vox Populi had previously found Rousseff with 45% of voting intentions, as against 44% on Neves's side.

Vox Populi polled 2,000 respondents in 147 cities, at a 95% confidence interval. Rousseff was found to be the leading candidate in the North, Central-West, and Northeast regions, whereas Neves leads in the South and Southeast.

Translated by Mayra Borges