Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, won the first round of the Brazilian presidential election tonight, turning in a surprisingly strong showing, and continuing a long run of wins for Latin American Trump-backed right-wing candidates.

Although the race had tightened considerably in the weeks leading up to the election, the vast majority of the polls showed incumbent President Inacio Lula da Silva with a single digit lead.

Bolsonaro will now face off against President Lula da Silva in an October 25 second round election. With 99% of the votes in, Bolsonaro led Lula 47.2% to 44.9%, in a race Lula had widely been expected to win.

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Tonight, the question on everyone’s mind: how could the pollsters get the results so wrong?

The epic polling failure will serve to give further ammunition to the Brazilian right and the Bolsonaro camp, which have long alleged that the nation’s leading pollsters turn in work biased in favor of Lula and his Workers Party.

The polling situation was similarly unfavorable to Jair Bolsonaro in the 2022 and 2018 elections, but relatively minor in comparison with the disparity in tonight’s electoral results.

Bolsonaro put in an incredibly strong showing in his electoral strongholds in the south of Brazil, winning the country’s three largest states by large margins: 

In Sao Paulo state, the nation’s largest, Bolsonaro led Lula 52% to 38%.

In Minas Gerais, which is Brazil’s historic «bellwether state», Bolsonaro led Lula 48% to 43%, while in his stronghold of Rio de Janeiro, he bested the incumbent president 53% to 39%.

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Lula racked up large margins in his traditional strongholds in the Northeast, where he won vote-rich Bahia, Pernambuco, and Ceara by large margins, but it was not enough to surmount Bolsonaro’s unprecedented electoral strength in Brazil’s south.

President Trump sent a letter to former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro calling for an immediate end to the ‘unjust’ trial against him for allegedly starting a coup. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci and Evaristo Sa/AFP via Getty Images)

Bolsonaro enjoyed a close relationship with Donald Trump through the course of the campaign, who made no secret of his intent to unceremoniously eject longtime geopolitical adversary Lula from office.

Tonight’s surprising result is merely the latest in a long string of right-wing victories across Latin America, which has recently ushered in a red wave of conservative candidates in Chile, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia.

The election will undoubtedly prompt a period of soul-searching for the Brazilian left, which may be asking, «Should Lula have run at all?»

At 80 years old, with three presidential terms under his belt, and aspiring to a fourth, Lula was widely viewed as the only contender who could unite the contentious and often-fractured Brazilian left.

President of Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks during the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the United Nations headquarters on September 23, 2025 in New York City. World leaders convened for the 80th Session of UNGA, with this year’s theme for the annual global meeting being «Better together: 80 years and more for peace, development and human rights.» (Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images)

Lula’s political story marks one of the greatest comebacks in history. Once imprisoned on corruption charges, Lula was freed by the nation’s Supreme Court, and then defeated incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in a heated 2022 election by a razor-thin margin.

Famously, he pledged to serve only one term as president in 2022, and then reneged on that promise. Now, the move seems likely to backfire on him, in what will almost certainly be his last electoral campaign.

Flavio Bolsonaro will now face off against incumbent Lula in a second round election on October 25. Bolsonaro begins the race with several structural advantages.

In addition to vastly outperforming across the country, and proving the pollsters wrong, he is likely to win the vast majority of the votes of the major third-party candidates: Augusto Cury, Renan Santos, Ronaldo Caiado, and Romeu Zema.

Together, these four candidates received nearly 8% of the vote. What remains to be seen is whether any of these candidates will make an endorsement. It is suspected that Caiado and Zema will back Bolsonaro, while Cury and Santos will likely not make an endorsement.

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s son announces biopic while brother Senator Flávio Bolsonaro enters 2026 presidential race from prison endorsement. (Ton Molina/Getty Images/ Evaristo Sa / AFP via Getty Images)

If elected, Flavio Bolsonaro is all but certain to free his father, and senior Brazilian military officers, who are currently jailed on charges of planning a coup to remain in power following the 2022 election.

The election also saw other members of the Bolsonaro family ushered into higher office: Jair Bolsonaro’s wife, Michelly, was elected senator, as was his son Carlos, while another son, Renan, was elected federal deputy.

Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party also turned in strong results in races for both chambers of Brazil’s Congress, particularly in the Senate, where they are expected to hold 29 seats, compared to just 9 for Lula’s Workers Party.

In Brazil’s lower chamber, the Liberal Party is also expected to hold the greatest number of seats, with 121, while Brazil Fe, a left-wing coalition, is on track to secure 78 seats.

Political analyst Flavio Morgenstern argued, «This election was not about Flavio Bolsonaro vs. Lula. It’s about all of freedom-loving Brazil against the Brazilian Supreme Court. People have no voice in the institutions, and all the power in Brazil is concentrated in the Supreme Court.»

The Brazilian right and the Bolsonaro family have long butted heads with the nation’s Supreme Federal Court, which is dominated by justices appointed by the Workers Party.

While Bolsonaro appears to have the wind in his sails, it is too early to count out Lula in the second round election in three weeks. Lula is renowned as a smart and effective campaigner, and still commands a powerful electoral machinery.

Yet, is winning election to an unprecedented fourth term a feat too daunting for even Lula, the great giant of the Latin American left?

Russia may be concealing signal repeaters inside Ukrainian cities to help its long-range drones evade air defenses and strike with greater precision, a weapons expert told Fox News Digital.

The Kyiv Post first reported the possible use of the small ground devices, or repeaters, which Draganfly CEO and co-founder Cameron Chell said form part of an expanding «mesh» network that allows Russian drones to relay encrypted signals across multiple connections, making drones and drone swarms far harder for Ukraine to disrupt and bring down through standard electronic jamming.

Chell’s warning also came amid escalating diplomatic notices for the region, with Moscow urging foreign nationals and embassy staff to leave the capital Kyiv immediately on Oct. 3, highlighting «mortal danger» as Russian forces threatened further «massive retaliatory strikes.»

«Russia has come to the realization that innovation is going to have to win this war, to the point now where they are becoming the innovative leader in this war—not just in terms of tactics, strategy, and technology, but the entire mindset is shifting,» Chell said.

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Mesh networks, Chell explained, allow drones and strategically placed ground-based repeaters to relay encrypted signals across multiple connections, making many Russian drone flights harder to disrupt.

«The use of mesh networking is now making it increasingly hard for a defensive position to bring down Russian drones in an effective manner.»

«With real-time precision, Russia can also now take their drone device into a particular window,» Chell warned.

«You can take the device onto a particular portion of a bridge because you can make that real-time, last-minute decision live because you’ve got all these additional network connections that increase not just your bandwidth, but also your resilience in terms of being jammed,» he added.

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Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat confirmed Sept. 29 that Russian forces are integrating mesh networking into their drone fleet while upgrading onboard optics. (Contributor/Getty Images)

Moscow’s rapid technological evolution on the battlefield comes alongside unusually precise strikes on critical infrastructure in Kyiv, including major river crossings.

Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat confirmed Sept. 29 that Russian forces are integrating mesh networking into their drone fleet while upgrading onboard optics.

«The enemy is using high-quality materials in its UAVs and increasing camera resolution, allowing the enemy to view the situation on the ground in detail and use these UAVs for various targets. And the use of mesh networks is indeed present. Of course, this is quite dangerous,» Ihnat said, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

«They are using the principles of mesh networking to combat the counter-drone measures taken by Ukraine to ensure that drones can’t get through or that those Russian communication links are broken,» Chell said.

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Small ground devices form part of an expanding «mesh» network that allows Russian drones and repeaters to relay encrypted signals across multiple connections, making drones far harder to disrupt, Chell said. (Genya Savilov/ AFP via Getty Images)

«If Russia had multiple nodes that could communicate with a device and could use the device to communicate with other devices swarming the area, Ukraine would be faced with multiple, maybe even hundreds of connections to have to break simultaneously in order to bring that drone down,» he said.

On Oct. 3, Serhii Beskrestnov, a defense technology adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, also warned that Russian forces may have hidden the small signal boosters, or these ground repeaters, inside Kyiv to extend drone control.

«Such repeaters are difficult to find, but we must search for them. As long as they exist, shielding the city with electronic warfare will not be effective,» Beskrestnov warned.

Specifically, the repeaters are small concealed radio relay devices that receive and retransmit signals, extending the range of drone operators while helping maintain control in areas where direct communications or GPS signals may be disrupted.

«The size of these repeaters is really about the size of a large lunchbox. They’re very easy to conceal, and they don’t have to be turned on all the time, so they’re hard to detect electronically,» Chell said.

«Moving one or two or even three of these into a city the size of Kyiv can be hugely effective.»

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Russia strikes Kyiv in a large-scale drone and missile attack. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Technical analysts also pointed to a Sept. 4 strike on the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) headquarters on Volodymyrska Street in central Kyiv as early evidence of the tactic.

Tracking data reportedly showed no relay drones airborne during the strike, fueling concerns that hidden ground-based repeaters may have been used to maintain communications with the attacking drone.

«They will be doing everything they can to move as many of these things not just into Kyiv, but at any location in the country, even operational battlefields,» Chell said.

«The reality is every time you put another node on a mesh network, you exponentially increase the efficiency, resiliency, and capability of that network.»

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sept. 28 that while Ukraine intercepts about 70% of conventional Russian drones during mass attacks, interception rates fall to 57% against newer, faster jet-powered UAVs.

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Anti-drone laser system trialed on a Stryker combat military vehicle with a machine gun aimed at the sky in Ukraine during a counteroffensive. (Michelle Ursi/Getty Images)

«It is obvious that the Russians are not preparing to stop the war – at least not at the moment,» Zelenskyy said.

«Next year Russia plans to spend US$12 billion just on producing jet-powered drones and loitering munitions. And that’s only one category of weapons. Of course, this doesn’t only relate to Ukraine,» he added, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

«Russia probably has the intention of, if needed, expanding this war,» Chell warned, arguing that drones themselves are becoming secondary to the communications architecture that guides them.

«The network is now the weapon, and the drone is what executes the desired result,» he said.

«This is an unbelievable moment in the tactics of what’s unfolding here with the future of warfare,» Chell concluded.