Brazil’s presidential race is headed to a second round after President Dilma Rousseff won the most votes on Sunday but failed to clinch the majority she needed to win a second term outright. The leftist Ms. Rousseff will face the more conservative Aécio Neves in a runoff on Oct. 26. The volatile election campaign was marked by big swings in polls and the death of a candidate in an August plane crash. With 94% of the vote counted, Ms. Rousseff had won 41% compared with 34% for Mr. Neves. Marina Silva, an environmentalist, took 21%. Ms. Silva briefly led in polls after joining the race late to replace the Socialist Party’s Eduardo Campos, who died in the crash. “We’re on a roller coaster,” said André Cesar, a political consultant based in the capital, Brasília.
Mr. Neves, a conservative from the more-developed south, was propelled into the second round by a late surge. After trailing by 20 points in August, he ran a tough campaign to convince anti-Rousseff voters he was better poised to unseat the incumbent than Ms. Silva.
Mr. Neves appealed late Sunday for the support of voters who backed Ms. Silva. “This is no longer the project of a political party, but a project for all who want to see the country grow,” he said in televised remarks.
The results mark a stunning reversal for Ms. Silva, an activist who grew up poor in Brazil’s Amazon forest and entered politics alongside the slain Amazon activist Chico Mendes in the 1980s. It appeared her compelling life story could help her win votes away from Ms. Rousseff among the poor. But her campaign withered amid organizational problems and a barrage of negative advertising.
Full Article: Brazil’s Presidential Vote Headed for Runoff – WSJ.