Poll shows Bolsonaro narrowing gap to Lula ahead of Brazil election

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro slightly narrowed his deficit to opponent Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva ahead of an October election, a poll published on Friday showed.

The survey by Datafolha showed Lula's lead dipping to 11 percentage points in the first round of the election, with 45% support against Bolsonaro's 34%. Bolsonaro recorded 32% support in the previous poll last week.

In an expected second-round run-off, Lula would be elected with 53% of the votes versus 39% for Bolsonaro, a 14 percentage point advantage, down from 15 points one week ago, the poll showed.

Bolsonaro's approval and rejection rates did not change from a week ago, at 31% and 42% respectively.

Datafolha interviewed 2,676 people in person between September 8 and 9. The poll has a margin of error of 2 percentage points up or down.