Brazilian right-wing parties on Sunday delivered their best electoral performance in over 40 years, securing a majority in the Senate while the nation’s electoral authorities finalize tallying the Lower House results.
Over 125 million Brazilian voters headed to the polls on Sunday to participate in their nation’s 2026 general elections — nearly 79 percent of Brazil’s 158.7 million electorate. The first round of the presidential election concluded with the victory of conservative Senator Flavio Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party (PL). However, Bolsonaro did not obtain the required 50-percent majority to win in the first round, automatically triggering an October 25 election between him and his closest rival, incumbent socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Opposition presidential candidate Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro speaks after voting during general elections in Rio de Janeiro, Sunday, October 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Lucas Landau)
In addition to voting for their next president, Brazilians also voted to elect regional governors, members of the Chamber of Deputies, and two-thirds of the nation’s 81 Senate seats. Sunday saw the PL party obtain its best legislative election results in the party’s history and it will become the largest force in both the Senate and Chamber of Deputies once the elected legislators take office in February 2027.
Bolsonaro and the PL’s performance at all levels of the general election have spearheaded what is now being described as the best performance of Brazilian right-wing parties in an election since the nation returned to democracy over 40 years ago. in 1985.
In the Senate, Jovem Pan reports that the PL secured a third of the chamber’s 81 seats, going from its current 15 seats to 28. Starting in February, PL and other right-wing parties will collectively occupy 49 of the 81 seats, standing against 27 leftist senators and five who are identified as centrists.
The results effectively mean that Brazilian right-wing parties will compose three-fifths of the Senate during the next legislative period. The ruling Workers’ Party (PT), led by President Lula, retained its nine seats while still holding second place on the list of parties with the most senators.
A street vendor sells campaign flags of presidential candidates Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro and current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who is running for reelection in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, September 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
Poder 360 explained that, to approve legislation in the Senate, a 41-vote majority is required, while constitutional amendments require 49 votes. Impeachment processes, such as those against Supreme Court justices, require a two-third majority vote to pass.
In the lower house, PL reportedly secured 121 of the 513 available seats. A coalition of leftist parties including the PT, the Communist Party of Brazil, and the Brazilian Green Party collectively secured 88 seats. Finalized Chamber of Deputies results are reportedly yet-to-be officially published by the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) at press time, as the final selection of lower house members is based on electoral quotients stablished by local laws.
The results will nevertheless not just allow the Bolsonaro-led PL to retain its position as the party with the most lawmakers in the Chamber of Deputies — it now has the largest parliamentary group of any party since the nation reformed its constitution in 1988, breaking a record established by the Brazilian Democratic Movement (MDB) party, when it secured 108 congressional seats in the 1990 general elections.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva speaks during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, Tuesday, September 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Globonews observed that the two lawmakers with the most votes on Sunday were Nikolas Ferreira from Minas Gerais, with over 3.1 million votes, and Lucas Pavanato from São Paulo, with a little over 3 million votes. Both are conservative members of the PL party. Most notably, Ferreira, a 30-year lawmaker, was censored by the TSE last week after he published a video condemning President Lula’s comment on girls being “touched.”
Sunday’s regional gubernatorial races resulted in a first-round election in 20 of the nation’s 27 states — 13 of which were secured by right-wing parties. Much like with the two chambers of the Brazilian congress, the PL party secured the largest number of the 20 first-round governor victories, with a total of five. Senator Sergio Moro, a former federal judge who oversaw the massive “Operation Car Wash” anti-corruption probe that led to Lula’s conviction, is among the five elected PL governors, having become elected governor of Paraná on Sunday.
Lula’s PT obtained three first-round governor victories. The remaining seven governor races will be defined in separate runoff elections alongside the upcoming presidential one between Bolsonaro and Lula on October 25.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.