Polymarket Beats Polls In the Brazilian Election
Prediction markets have become a reliable source of political data, and the first round of the Brazilian presidential election seems to confirm and cement this role.
Polls from respected national sources like Datafolha expected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to lead the first round with 42% of the vote, and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro to trail in second place with 38%, with the rest spread across other candidates.
Nonetheless, the election followed a different course. Bolsonaro defeated Lula, reaching 47.03% of the popular vote with over 56 million votes, while the Brazilian president only reached 45.16%, registering 53.8 million votes, forcing a runoff election on October 25.
