Trump Calls Brazil Runoff 'Rigged' Without Evidence as Treasury Cancels Bond Auctions After Lula Win

Since Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won Brazil's runoff on Sunday, Oct. 25, the fallout has spread from the polling stations to Washington and the bond market.

The official result: Lula took 64.2 million votes to Flávio Bolsonaro's 59.8 million, or 51.79% to 48.21%, a margin of roughly 4.4 million. Lula had finished second in the Oct. 4 first round. No candidate in that position had won a runoff since Brazil returned to democracy. He is due to begin his fourth term on Jan. 5, 2027.

Trump weighs in

Trump took almost 24 hours to comment. Speaking to reporters on Monday, Oct. 26, as he left Washington for a rally ahead of next week's U.S. midterms, he said: "It looked like another rigged election, frankly."

He pointed to the tabulation and the extended voting hours. "I just thought it was a very bad look, the way it was tabulated, with the extension," he said. He also said, "I like Lula, I get along with him very well."

Trump presented no evidence that the extension or the count changed the outcome. Asked whether he would act on it, he said: "I'm not running Brazil. I'm running the USA."

The two-hour extension

The extension is the factual core of the dispute. Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin ordered polls kept open nationwide for two more hours, ruling three minutes before voting was scheduled to end. Both campaigns had asked for more time.

Lula's request followed problems with buses carrying voters in nine states. Bolsonaro's campaign cited heavy rain in the south. At some polling places, voting machines had already been switched off before officials received the order, and the evening was marked by confusion.

Bolsonaro, a senator and the son of jailed former president Jair Bolsonaro, refused to concede. "It is impossible to recognize the election results, given the circumstances under which things unfolded," he told journalists. He said he will ask for the result to be annulled and has called the extension "unacceptable."

Analysts cited by the Jerusalem Post say the petition is unlikely to succeed. They point to the size of the margin and to the fact that Bolsonaro's own campaign sought an extension. Observers also warn that his refusal to concede could spark protests in a country where trust in elections and the courts has been strained. His father was later sentenced to 27 years for plotting a coup after the 2022 election.

Last-minute rule changes on election day, made by a single justice, are the kind of thing that fuels distrust even when they are requested by both sides. No evidence presented so far shows votes were altered.

Markets and the Treasury

Brazilian assets sold off hard on Monday. According to LSEG data, the real fell 10.5% against the dollar to its lowest level since December 2025. Al Jazeera put the drop at 12% in spot trading.

Brazil's stock exchange halted trading for 30 minutes after the Bovespa index fell 10% from its previous close and tripped a circuit breaker. The iShares MSCI Brazil ETF was 25% lower at 10:30 a.m. ET, per CNBC. Among U.S.-listed Brazilian names at the time, Itaú Unibanco was down 20%, Petrobras down 16%, Ambev down 10.3%, Embraer down 5% and Vale down 1.2%.

The Brazilian Treasury canceled auctions of inflation-linked and fixed-rate government bonds scheduled for Oct. 27 and Oct. 29. It said it would "continue to monitor market conditions and act to ensure the proper functioning of the government bond market." An auction of Treasury Financial Bills on Oct. 27 will go ahead.

The sell-off partly reverses gains made after Bolsonaro won the first round. Stocks closed Friday almost 7% above their pre-first-round level, and the real was nearly 5% stronger.

Rachel Ziemba of the Center for a New American Security said traders were "covering their bets that assume a Bolsonaro victory and tighter fiscal policy." She said the scale of the win suggests the result will stand, and that commodity revenues should still support the real.

Citi analysts said investors are worried about "fiscal policy, state-owned enterprises, and the broader reform agenda." ING's Chris Turner said a 7-8% budget deficit and 70% net debt-to-GDP leave Brazil vulnerable in a global bond sell-off. He noted that Lula has pledged to extend the Bolsa Família welfare program and to shorten the working week without pay cuts.

How Lula closed the gap

Lula's allies credit part of the turnaround to a WhatsApp channel called Lula's Army, which grew to 10.8 million followers. Congressman André Janones ran it, handing supporters daily tasks such as boosting videos and hashtags. Lula thanked Janones in his victory speech as "our General."

How many votes it moved is unknown. Political scientists cited by the BBC say that cannot be determined. Denilde Holzhacker argues that a shift in the campaign's overall strategy was the key factor.

What Lula inherits

Lula told supporters in São Paulo: "Democracy always, dictatorship never again." He also said the election was "a defeat for denialism and lies." On sovereignty, he said: "This country will not accept being anyone's backyard."

He returns to a Congress packed with Bolsonaro allies after a surge of right-wing voting. "The challenges are countless," said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper in São Paulo.

The immediate questions are concrete. Brazil's electoral authorities have yet to rule on Bolsonaro's annulment petition, and the Treasury must decide when to reschedule the two canceled bond auctions. Bond investors will be watching whether Lula's team produces a budget path that calms them before he takes office on Jan. 5.