RIO DE JANEIRO, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- A Sensus poll released on Thursday shows that Brazil's presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro leads with over 30 percent of voting intentions and has an advantage in most second round scenarios.
According to the poll commissioned by the weekly magazine Istoe, Bolsonaro leads with 30.8 percent of voting intentions, followed by Fernando Haddad with 24.5 percent, Ciro Gomes with 7.7 percent, Geraldo Alckmin with 5.6 percent, and Marina Silva with 2.7 percent. Other candidates have less than two percent of the vote.
The Sensus poll shows quite a different scenario from the other polls released this week. Though all polls show Bolsonaro in the lead and Haddad in second place, the other polls show a much higher voting intention regarding the other three main candidates.
In the Sensus poll, polarization has intensified with Haddad's Workers' Party on one side and far-right Bolsonaro on the other. Another difference of the Sensus poll is Bolsonaro's position in second round simulation: unlike in other recent polls, the candidate is shown with an advantage over his adversaries.
In a second round simulation between Bolsonaro and Haddad, Bolsonaro has the lead with 37.2 percent, while Haddad has 36.3 percent. As the poll's margin of error is 2.2 points, the two candidates are technically tied.
Against Ciro Gomes, most polls show Bolsonaro losing by a landslide, but the Sensus poll shows him at the lead, with 35.1 percent of voting intentions against the 33.5 percent of Gomes. Against Geraldo Alckmin, Bolsonaro wins by 38 against 26.4 percent, and against Marina Silva, he wins by 37.4 against 26.5 percent.
The Sensus poll is also the only one in which Bolsonaro does not have the highest rejection rate -- in fact, all rejection rates shown are considerably higher than in other polls. Marina Silva has the lead, with 54.4 percent, followed by Henrique Meirelles, the candidate of current government party MDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement), who does not even have two percent of voting intentions. Meirelles' rejection rate reflects the public's disapproval of the current administration.
Geraldo Alckmin is in third place, with a rejection rate of 51.8 percent, followed by Bolsonaro, with 47.7 percent, Haddad with 47.1 percent, and Gomes with a rejection rate of 43.8 percent.
The Sept. 21-24 poll has a margin of error of 2.2 points and was carried out with 2,000 electors from all over Brazil.
