RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Brazilian ruling party candidate Dilma Rousseff holds a solid lead over challenger Jose Serra days before a presidential runoff on Sunday, according to a new opinion poll.
Rousseff had 50 per cent of voter support in the survey by polling firm Datafolha, which was published yesterday by the online edition of the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper, compared with Serra’s 40 per cent. The last Datafolha poll on Tuesday showed Rousseff leading Serra by 49 per cent to 38 per cent.
The poll followed other surveys this week showing Rousseff with a strong lead over Serra in the final days of the campaign.
An Ibope poll published on Thursday showed Rousseff with 52 percent of voter support versus Serra’s 39 percent, while a Sensus poll released on Wednesday showed her leading by 52 percent to 37 percent.
Rousseff, a career civil servant and former leftist militant, appears to have regained momentum after a drop in support several weeks ago caused by voters’ doubts about her religious beliefs and her stance on abortion.
Serra initially capitalized on misgivings over those issues as well as a recent corruption scandal involving a Rousseff aide.
Rousseff has steered the discussion back toward the eight years of strong economic growth under her mentor, the popular president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose endorsement is considered the biggest factor in Rousseff’s success.
She would have a 12-point lead, with 56 percent versus 44 percent for Serra once blank and void ballots are excluded, as they are on election day, the poll showed, the same as in the previous Datafolha survey.
Voting is legally required in Brazil, although some voters leave their ballots blank to show dissatisfaction with the candidates.
Serra, the former Sao Paulo state governor, has one more televised debate on Friday to push his message that Rousseff has contradicted herself on moral values issues and has no experience as an elected official.
But the debates so far have received limited attention from voters and have had little noticeable effect on the campaign. The last one may have little impact as well given it is scheduled for late yesterday.
Datafolha surveyed 4,205 people on Thursday for the poll, which had a margin of error of 2 percentage points. Five percent of voters plan to submit blank votes or not vote for either candidate, while 4 percent were undecided.
If she wins, Rousseff is expected to continue Lula’s mix of market-friendly policies and social programs while expanding the role of the state in some areas of Latin America’s largest economy.
