For Lula to reach approximately 64.2 million votes in the second round of Brazil’s 2026 presidential election, the arithmetic would require this impossible combination of actions: Core retention: • Retain 100% of his first-round votes
(roughly 53.9 million) New or redirected support • Capture 100% of the roughly 3 million voters who had abstained in the first round but turned out in the second
(abstention fell from about 21.1% to 19.2%) • Receive 100% of the approximately 1.8 million votes that had been blank or null in the first round and were converted into valid ballots in the runoff
(null and blank votes declined between rounds) • Win roughly 60% of the votes previously cast for the eliminated candidates (Augusto Cury, Renan Santos, Ronaldo Caiado, Romeu Zema, and the smaller remaining names), who together held about 9.3 million votes in the first round