Lula wins fourth term as Brazil's president; Flávio Bolsonaro leaves Brazil and is reported to have landed in Florida

As of 12:39 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026

Update (Oct. 28, 2026, 12:39 p.m. ET): This story has been updated with AFP and AP reports that Bolsonaro landed in Florida.

Update (Oct. 28, 2026, 9:09 a.m. ET): This story has been updated with Argentina's statement that Flávio Bolsonaro crossed into Argentina and boarded a flight to Ecuador, and with President Trump's remarks that he would approve Bolsonaro's coming to the United States. Bolsonaro's current whereabouts have not been officially confirmed.

Update (Oct. 26, 2026, 1:42 p.m. ET): This story has been updated with Brazil's market reaction, including a 30-minute trading halt on the B3 stock exchange and the Treasury's cancellation of two bond auctions, according to Reuters.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won re-election in Brazil's presidential runoff on Sunday, defeating Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro to secure a fourth term, the country's Superior Electoral Court (TSE) announced. Bolsonaro refused to concede and said he would ask for the election to be annulled.

Argentina's National Migration Directorate said Wednesday that Bolsonaro and his family entered Argentina from Brazil at 10:50 p.m. local time Tuesday (9:50 p.m. ET) over the Tancredo Neves International Bridge in Misiones province, with valid travel documents and no legal impediment, and then boarded a private flight bound for Guayaquil, Ecuador, according to BBC News Mundo. It was not clear whether Ecuador was his final destination, BBC News Mundo reported.

AFP journalists later reported seeing Bolsonaro leave a plane after landing in Florida; The Associated Press also reported that he and his family had landed in Miami.

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would approve of Bolsonaro coming to the United States. "Well, I would approve," Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews on his return from a campaign trip to Texas, Reuters reported. "I think they're fine people," he said. "The election was very strange, and I thought it was terrible."

A senior U.S. State Department official told Reuters on Tuesday that the department would issue visas to Bolsonaro and his family and allow them to enter the United States. AP earlier reported, citing a senior U.S. official, that the family would be granted visas.

Lula, speaking in Brasília on Tuesday, called Bolsonaro's departure shameful and said he should have stayed in Brazil and proved his innocence, Reuters reported. Bolsonaro has denied wrongdoing in the money-laundering investigation tied to the Supreme Court's order to surrender his passports, according to Reuters.

Bolsonaro's arrival in the United States has not been confirmed by Brazilian or U.S. authorities or by Bolsonaro himself.

Lula received 64,256,232 votes, or 51.79% of valid votes, and Bolsonaro received 59,826,041, or 48.21%, according to the TSE. The court's president, Justice Kassio Nunes Marques, announced the result Sunday night and congratulated both candidates, the TSE said. More than 158 million people were eligible to vote and 128.2 million turned out, the court said, putting abstention at about 19.2%, down from 21.08% in the first round.

Lula, who turns 81 on Tuesday, finished about 4.4 million votes ahead, The Associated Press and AFP reported. No candidate who lost the first round had gone on to win the runoff in Brazil since 1989, AFP reported. The new term begins Jan. 5, 2027, according to AP.

Bolsonaro says he will seek annulment

Speaking in Brasília on Sunday night, Bolsonaro said he would not recognize the result. "It is impossible, it is impossible to recognize the result of the elections in the context of how these things happened. We are going to use our legal team; I am going to ask for the annulment of these elections," he said, according to the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo (translated from the Portuguese by GROKsiNEWS.com). AFP quoted him as saying, "It is impossible to recognize the results. I am going to request the annulment of these elections."

Bolsonaro directed his objection at a Supreme Court order that extended voting by two hours. "I will not accept that the rules of the game were changed in the middle of the game, once again by Lula's friends on the Supreme Federal Court," he said, according to Folha. AFP reported that he called the decision "unacceptable" and a "dirty trick."

Bolsonaro also said inspectors from his Liberal Party (PL) had been removed from a secure room at the TSE once the decision was made, Folha reported. Folha said he did not explain what irregularity he was alleging. He spoke for about two minutes at a house in Brasília's Lago Sul district that had been prepared for a victory party, according to Folha.

Bolsonaro said he will seek annulment. GROKsiNEWS.com had not seen a filing with the TSE or the Supreme Court as of this writing.

Bolsonaro is the eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who AFP reported is serving a 27-year prison sentence for attempting a coup after losing to Lula in 2022.

The voting extension

Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin on Sunday ordered voting extended by two hours, to 7 p.m. Brasília time, at the request of Lula's campaign, which had complained of reduced bus service in several cities. Bolsonaro's campaign had separately asked for more limited extensions in some southern and southeastern cities, citing heavy rain, Folha and AFP reported.

In its account of Nunes Marques' remarks, the TSE said the order extended voting in polling sections that were still open and was communicated after the scheduled 5 p.m. close. By then, thousands of electronic voting machines had already been shut down and could not be reopened, the court said, and it temporarily stopped receiving machine tally reports, which created a backlog. "Extending an election is possible, but it has to be thought through and structured," Nunes Marques said, according to the TSE (translated from the Portuguese by GROKsiNEWS.com).

Nunes Marques also said the court decision caused no change in the election, Folha reported. "There was no alteration arising from the court decision," he said, according to Folha (translated from the Portuguese by GROKsiNEWS.com).

Lula's remarks

In his first remarks after the result, Lula said the campaign had had to overcome foreign interference through digital platforms. "This election was an election in which we had to overcome interference coming from outside in, through digital platforms, which we are going to have to regulate," he said, according to the news site g1 (translated from the Portuguese by GROKsiNEWS.com). "It is not possible that we are not aware that crime in the digital world has to be treated the same as crime in real life."

Lula also criticized his opponent. "I never thought I would come face to face with a genuine representative of 'milicianismo' in this country," he said, according to g1. Milicianismo refers to the influence of Brazil's militias, armed criminal groups.

Market reaction

Brazilian markets fell sharply on Monday after Lula's re-election. Trading on Brazil's stock exchange was halted for 30 minutes after the benchmark Ibovespa index fell 10% from its last close, triggering its circuit breaker, exchange operator B3 said in a statement, Reuters reported. The real weakened nearly 12% against the U.S. dollar in early spot trading, and Brazil's Treasury cancelled its regular auctions of inflation-linked and fixed-rate government bonds scheduled for Oct. 27 and Oct. 29, according to Reuters.

What is not known

It is not yet known when or where Bolsonaro's team will file a challenge or what it will argue beyond the voting extension. The TSE had not responded publicly to his annulment call as of this writing.