Lockheed Martin’s (LMT) Sikorsky unit has been selected to supply S-92A+ helicopters for South Korea’s Presidential Helicopter II program, the company announced. The aircraft will serve the Republic of Korea Air Force.
For investors, the selection adds demand for Sikorsky’s upgraded
WASHINGTON — Democratic upsets in this year’s midterms, which stretched from the suburbs of Atlanta to rural Kansas, could reshape the electoral map that governs presidential politics — and, with it, the calculus for each party in the fight for the nation’s top office in 2028.
Democrats were already cautioning against overconfidence, discussing how to translate their midterm success into more lasting power and to draw back Tuesday’s voters in 2028.
For Republicans, the defeat set off something close to an existential crisis, with would-be contenders for the party’s presidential nomination openly debating what had gone wrong and how the party should regroup after voters rebuked President Trump’s agenda.
And members of both parties were taking stock of the deep reach Democrats demonstrated Tuesday, with Senate, House and state legislative seats flipped in red strongholds that have not been up for grabs in a presidential race in years.
The midterm results have “enlarged the competitive map” for 2028, said Alex Keyssar, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, who has written books about voting rights and the electoral college. States such as Texas and Georgia may no longer be considered long-safe GOP territory, he said, leaving Republicans with fewer states they can count on and more ground they will have to spend money to defend.
“The number of states that the Republicans can feel secure that they have has diminished,” he said. “And the flip side of that is that there are more states that the Democrats can compete in. And that’s a shift.”
Presidential hopefuls typically begin putting together exploratory committees soon after the midterms, announce their candidacies after the new year and begin fundraising by midyear. Potential candidates began putting down markers swiftly this week.
On Thursday, allies of Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) launched a fundraising committee for his potential candidacy. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is considering a run, commuted the death sentences of all California’s death row prisoners. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker this week released a road map with recommendations for the new Congress.
And party leaders in Washington were nodding to 2028 as they outlined broad plans for their House and Senate majorities.
“As we look to 2028 and beyond, we need to start identifying now, in 2027, to solidify our position in the states we won and build our party infrastructure in those areas,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told an audience Wednesday at the think tank Center for American Progress, “and continue to expand the map into new states.”
Meanwhile, Republican leaders moved swiftly to assert authority within their party with analyses and prescriptions after Tuesday’s battering. Vice President JD Vance, long seen as a potential Trump heir, on Wednesday rushed to blame the sweeping losses on the president’s war in Iran.
Sen. Ted Cruz, whose state of Texas saw a historic blue wave, faulted his party for ignoring the economic pain many voters face. And Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, one of the few states where Republicans held the line, called the midterms an “extinction level event for Republicans” that will last beyond 2028.
“Once you have the [midterm] election results, that’s when like the real literal politicking begins, and you have to move quick,” said Matt Gorman, a Republican strategist who worked for the National Republican Congressional Committee and the presidential campaigns of Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney.
For the GOP, Tuesday’s results will mean spending more money in places such as Texas that the party has traditionally counted on to get their candidates to 270 electoral votes, Keyssar said.
“When the map shifts, the strategies have to shift, and that includes the allocation of money,” he said.
For Democrats, the midterms demonstrated that the party should be “investing heavily in the coastal South,” said Keneshia Grant, a Howard University political scientist. The party needs to “recognize the moment and meet it,” she said, pointing to the unexpectedly close Senate races in Florida and Mississippi.
“If you’re the Democratic Party at the national level, you now have to ask yourself different questions about the calculus,” Grant said.
It is generally difficult to predict the next presidential election outcome based on the results of the preceding midterms, said Justin Grimmer, a political scientist at Stanford University.
“Right now there’s this incentive or dream of Democrats to think, like, ‘Well, what if this were 2028? Then it’s a landslide.’ And then Republicans are fearful that if this map were to carry forward, that they would get ransacked in ‘28,” Grimmer said.
But “it’s hard to know what the major issues are gonna be in 2028, who the candidates are, and what sort of world we’ll be in.”
President Trump has so far declined to endorse a successor, saying it is “too early” to make the call, though he has praised both Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“We’ll see what happens,” Trump said Wednesday. “You can have maybe a lot of people running, maybe nobody is going to run. … I don’t know who is going to run.”
Trump cast doubt on whether Vance would eventually run. But Vance appeared to be signaling 2028 aspiration with a post that pinned the GOP defeats on the Iran conflict launched by Trump this year.
The scale of the midterm losses may be the most useful thing for Republicans moving toward 2028, Gorman argued.
“The silver lining is that there’s no silver lining,” Gorman said.
That’s because there is nothing to cling to. “It’s a bottoming-out,” he said, which frees the party to begin “rebuilding conversations.”
The larger danger for whoever leads the party next is assuming that Trump’s voters come with the nomination, he argued, saying the 2028 nominee will have to create their own voter coalition. The same applies to Democrats, Gorman said, pointing to Latino voters who swung toward Trump in 2024 and back toward Democrats this year.
Such groups of swing voters, said California Republican consultant Mike Madrid, care about economic and quality-of-life-issues, not culture-war and partisan issues.
Madrid said that if he were advising a 2028 presidential contender, he would tell them, “Quit talking about these differences, or at least set these differences in the construct of a class-based, top down model — not a right left model.”
With Democrats set for a wide-open presidential primary with a large array of candidates, the sweeping success on Tuesday of the party’s populist platform could influence how 2028 contenders run their campaigns.
Democratic leaders in Congress have said they intend to make affordability a centerpiece of their legislative agenda as soon as they take control of both chambers next year. But any measure will still need Trump’s signature, setting up an early test of whether Democrats can hand voters tangible results before 2028 — or end up with a stack of vetoes to campaign on instead.
“We have won immense amounts of political power, and now it’s the most important time in which to deliver,” Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) told reporters Wednesday, “so we can keep that political power.”
Now that voters expect Democrats to clean up the nation’s problems in the next session, the party has to ensure that is “backed up by real results” — something anyone who is preparing a 2028 run will need to have in mind, strategist Rob Flaherty said at the Center for American Progress event Thursday.
“That is a huge thing that whoever we nominate has to be thinking about: quick delivery, quick change that people can substantively feel in their lives,” Flaherty said.
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who has not ruled out a presidential run, told reporters Thursday that some states may now be more “swing-ish” and that the Democrats will need to “take in” and analyze Tuesday’s data.
But, he said, voters’ top issues will remain the same.
“The candidates … that can answer those things authentically and well for the voter,” he said, are “going to be the more successful” ones.
Vance cited trusted pollster saying Iran war, Israel ties were top of mind for Trump voters swinging to Democrats.
Published On 4 Nov 20264 Nov 2026
Vice President JD Vance has blamed the war on Iran for his party’s withering midterms defeat, suggesting that the conflict may not have been worth ceding control of the US Congress to Democrats.
“The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” he wrote in a lengthy post on X. “If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so.”
“Everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.”
Vance, a likely 2028 presidential candidate and heir apparent to Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, has been a key negotiator with Iran as the two countries search for a way out of the conflict, which has dented their economies and pushed global fuel prices up.
His statements on Tehran have been more dovish than those of other key members of the administration, and his post-election note appears to mark the closest he has yet come to publicly diverging from his boss on an issue that looks set to dog Republicans as the war continues.
Citing a pollster he describes as “one of the smartest people I know”, Vance said he was told ending the Iran war and “changing our relationship with Israel” were two of the top four answers given by Americans surveyed who had voted for Trump in 2024 but were planning to vote for Democrats in the 2026 midterms.
In stark contrast, Trump said, in the wake of the rebuke at the ballot box, that he had no regrets about launching the conflict.
“I did the right thing. I would have done it again,” he told the Wall Street Journal.
The US Secretary of State hosted far-right Machado in March. (EFE)
Caracas, October 27, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Trump administration has announced plans to back electoral reforms in Venezuela and push for presidential elections.
In a press briefing with international journalists on Monday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called Venezuela’s electoral infrastructure “designed to rig elections” and argued it must be replaced quickly to ensure a valid vote.
Rubio, who has been the Trump administration’s chief architect of US policy toward Venezuela, said talks between Acting President Delcy Rodríguez’s government and opposition sectors led by Dinorah Figuera were moving toward the appointment of a new Supreme Court (TSJ) before the end of the year, followed shortly afterward by the renewal of the National Electoral Council (CNE).
“Obviously, we need to use our influence with the interim [Venezuelan] authorities, to ensure that the process moves forward responsibly (…) Our goal is to have an election,” Rubio said. He welcomed what he described as “serious progress in that direction” and warned that “if anyone tries to derail the process, they will seriously harm Venezuela.”
In a separate press briefing, a senior State Department official added that, once both institutions have been reconstituted, the Venezuelan presidency will be declared permanently vacant, triggering a six-month constitutional deadline for presidential elections to be held “under competitive conditions.”
The anonymous official stressed that the process would also require political guarantees and regulations on access to the press. The official also defended the inclusion of pro-government sectors in a “transition,” arguing that peaceful democratic processes often require cooperation from outgoing factions, citing Spain and Portugal as precedents.
Asked about a specific election date, Rubio said the Rodríguez administration had complied with US timetables so far.
“Are we going to wait two years [for an election]? That’s not going to happen. At best, I have two years and two months left in this position,” he added.
His remarks coincide with statements by Dinorah Figuera, who heads the opposition delegation in talks with government representatives and forecast presidential elections to take place in late 2027 or early 2028.
Meanwhile, the third round of political dialogue in Venezuela agreed to review four laws governing political participation, pluralism, and the autonomy of political organizations, including the Law on Political Parties, Public Meetings, and Demonstrations. The discussions also addressed disqualifications from holding public office and the review of legal frameworks related to political rights.
In parallel, Venezuela’s National Assembly formally launched the process to renew the 32 justices of the Supreme Court (TSJ). Applications from legal professionals seeking to join the court will be accepted from Wednesday, October 28, through Wednesday, November 11. The fourth round of dialogue is scheduled for November 11–15.
Rodríguez and other Venezuelan high-ranking officials have not commented on the State Department announcements.
The White House’s claims relating to Venezuelan reforms and elections coincided with the return of opposition leader María Corina Machado to the country on Sunday. The far-right politician had spent more than a year abroad and her supporters have called for her inclusion in the ongoing negotiations.
Asked about Machado’s return, Rubio said he had told the Rodríguez government “weeks ago” that Machado should be able to come back without obstacles. The secretary of state denied that Washington had obstructed Machado’s return, stating only that she was advised against traveling immediately after the June 24 double earthquake.
Rodríguez, for her part, said the opposition politician could have avoided the “show” of appearing at a church in Lara state before traveling 400 kilometers to Caracas at the head of a motorcade, amid chants of “freedom” and calls for immediate presidential elections.
“The airports are there. Let’s move away from the show (…) Many people who have benefited from the amnesty law and this process, which seeks peaceful coexistence, have been able to enter through the airport’s new transitional structures,” Rodríguez said.
The acting president declined to clarify which route Machado had taken to reenter Venezuela. Machado left the country in December 2024 for Oslo, where she received the Nobel Peace Prize before gifting it to Trump. She and her party maintain that the government prevented her from returning on seven previous occasions, a claim the authorities deny.
Asked whether the justice system would take action against Machado, Rodríguez replied that she hoped there would be “repentance and a change of course” from the opposition figure and that the opposition leader would be able to “contribute something to the country.” In recent years, Machado endorsed economic sanctions and a foreign military attack against Venezuela.
Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.
As the weeks pass, the transition framework being tested by the U.S. State Department for Venezuela is becoming increasingly clear. On Monday the 26th, a senior State Department official told the press: “That is the goal here: a new TSJ before the end of this year; a new CNE shortly thereafter; declare the vacant – permanent vacancy in the presidency that triggers the six-month cycle for the presidential election. And that’s – and then that election will happen, run by the nonpolitical CNE and governed by a TSJ that you’re not going to go to and basically annul the results of the elections because it’s been compromised or politicized the way the regime used it in the past.”
Secretary of State Rubio has been consistent on this point: institutional conditions in Venezuela must be restored before elections can be held. This is also what Venezuelans have demanded for years: an independent Supreme Court, TSJ, and an electoral board, CNE that ensure the will expressed through elections is respected. This is the exact opposite of what occurred in 2024, when the regime used the CNE and the TSJ to disregard Edmundo González’s electoral victory.
Venezuela must undergo a process of institutional reorganization, which will be a central component of the political transition. The first issue to be addressed is the “absolute absence” in the Presidency of the Republic following January 3rd. While the individual who served as Executive Vice President has filled that void, under the Venezuelan Constitution, it is indisputable that we are facing a case of “absolute absence,” which must be resolved according to the rules outlined in the Constitution itself.
In this regard, the Constitutional Chamber could play a significant role by interpreting—in accordance with the Constitution—any questions that may arise concerning this “absolute absence” and how it should be resolved. Furthermore, regarding the organization of elections, the Electoral Chamber could play a decisive role by resolving issues related to restoring the conditions for electoral integrity—conditions that are essential in Venezuela.
Given the lack of political will on the part of the interim authorities to repeal laws that run counter to human rights, the Constitutional Chamber could declare such laws null and void.
This is why the roadmap adopted by the negotiating team is based on a highly sound logic: Venezuela’s institutional vulnerability is so severe that the country cannot sustain an electoral process—such as one for the presidency—without first stabilizing, at the very least, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice and the National Electoral Council.
Naturally, this is not incompatible with the demand for elections, as María Corina Machado calls for.
However, it seems both logical and prudent first to restore the Supreme Tribunal of Justice and the National Electoral Council to take that step securely.
Leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has defeated right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro in Brazil’s contentious presidential race, pulling off a remarkable comeback after a first-round loss that galvanised the country’s political right.
Shortly after 9:00pm Brasilia time on Sunday (00:00 GMT), Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court called the race for Lula, who had earned more than 51 percent of the vote. More than 64 million ballots were cast for the incumbent.
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Bolsonaro, meanwhile, netted 48 percent, or north of 59 million ballots. More than 4 million votes separated the two candidates, with the final votes still being counted.
With his victory, Lula has made history. No other politician in modern Brazilian history has lost the first round of a presidential election only to win the second round.
“A historic turning point for democracy,” Edinho Silva, the head of Lula’s Workers’ Party, posted on social media, along with a video of supporters chanting, “Ole, ole, ole, ole, ola! Lula, Lula!”
Still, the vote process was marred by allegations of voter suppression after reports emerged that public transport in some areas had been suspended.
Lula’s allies accused Bolsonaro’s supporters of reducing bus availability, in an attempt dampen the president’s working-class base.
Heavy rains, meanwhile, affected southern areas considered to be Bolsonaro strongholds.
The campaigns of both Lula and Bolsonaro ultimately petitioned the Supreme Court for a voting extension. Polls across the country were kept open two hours later than expected, until 7pm Brasilia time (22:00 GMT).
Sunday’s victory means Lula will retain the presidency of Latin America’s largest country, denying a crucial victory to the region’s right wing.
In recent years, right-wing leaders have swept presidential races in nearby countries like Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador. Many have ridden a wave of anti-incumbent energy and enjoyed support from United States President Donald Trump, who returned to office in January 2025.
A former union leader for metalworkers, Lula – at age 80 – will be sworn in on January 5, 2027, when he will beat his own record as the oldest Brazilian president to take the oath of office since the country’s return to democracy.
His victory has earned him an unprecedented fourth non-consecutive term.
Lula came into Sunday’s run-off as an underdog. While he narrowly led pre-election, the first round of voting on October 4 showed him trailing Bolsonaro.
He earned 45 percent of the first-round vote, compared with the right-wing senator’s 47 percent, both tallies short of the 50 percent needed to avoid a run-off.
But in the weeks since, Lula has rallied supporters around cost-of-living issues. He championed a constitutional amendment passed this month that shortened the Brazilian workweek, and floated the possibility of providing free public transport on weekends.
Having entered politics in the 1980s, during the twilight of the country’s military dictatorship, Lula has run for president seven times.
He won two consecutive terms from 2002 through 2010, as well as a third term in 2022, in what was the tightest race in modern Brazilian history up to that point.
His rival in that election, former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, is the father of Senator Bolsonaro, Lula’s adversary in this race.
Jair Bolsonaro has since been sentenced to 27 years in prison for his role in plotting a coup following his loss to Lula.
Despite overseeing a decline in poverty and low unemployment during his third term in office, Lula has faced questions about his age, his ability to combat crime, and the country’s polarised political landscape.
An explosion of household debt has also left many Brazilians feeling their economic circumstances have worsened.
In September, Lula banned online gambling and sport betting apps to address the issue.
While the victory over Bolsonaro cements Lula’s status as one of the most significant and influential figures in Brazil’s modern history, efforts to advance legislative priorities during his fourth term could be stymied by the most right-wing Congress in recent memory.
Foes of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is widely viewed as a likely 2028 presidential candidate, are launching television and digital ads this weekend in early primary states that criticize the governor’s opposition to the proposed billionaire tax on California’s November ballot.
The ad, funded by backers of the wealth tax, castigates Newsom for opposing Proposition 40, the ballot measure that would impose a 5% tax on California billionaires’ assets to offset federal healthcare funding cuts approved by congressional Republicans and signed by President Trump last year.
“We’re all struggling with the high cost of healthcare. In California, Democrats are championing a one-time tax on billionaires that would save coverage for millions,” a narrator says in the 30-second ad. “So why [has] presidential hopeful Gavin Newsom betrayed his own supporters by trying to sabotage the billionaire tax? Maybe it’s because the same billionaires who oppose Prop. 40 also gave millions of dollars to Newsom. Gavin Newsom turned his back on working Californians. Will he do the same to you?”
The ad specifically calls out billionaires Stewart Resnick, who owns several businesses including Pom Wonderful, Fiji Water and Justin Wines; crypto executive Chris Larsen; former Google leader Eric Schmidt; and venture capitalist Michael Moritz, all of whom have backed Newsom’s political ambitions.
Newsom has argued that, although he supports wealth taxes, they ought to be enacted at the national level, rather than a state-by-state patchwork that could drive the rich to leave California, a state with a volatile budget heavily dependent on the state’s wealthiest residents.
The primary funders of the ad are the Service Employees International Union – United Healthcare Workers West, which crafted Proposition 40; Saikat Chakrabarti, a climate change warrior and political advisor who made his wealth in part as a founding engineer at Stripe; and Ross Boucher, an early engineer at Stripe.
The ad buy is six figures but could grow, according to its backers. Among the states where the ad is expected to air are South Carolina, Nevada, New Mexico, Virginia and New Hampshire.
Earlier this month, Newsom stumped for candidates in New Hampshire, his latest foray to early presidential primary states.
The ad launch comes amid a contentious, expensive battle over the proposed wealth tax, which has divided Democrats and their allies. Although Newsom is among Democrats who oppose it, the ballot measure was endorsed by the state Democratic Party and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Voters are closely divided about the measure.
Voters in Brazil are headed to the polls for the second time in one month, as Senator Flavio Bolsonaro and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva square off in a run-off election to decide who will hold the presidency for the next four years.
While Bolsonaro outperformed expectations during the first round of voting on October 4, when he beat Lula by less than two percentage points but failed to secure the majority needed to avoid a run-off, the leftist president has sought to rally supporters ahead of the second round.
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The vote on Sunday will decide whether Brazil joins a growing list of countries across Latin America that have handed victories to far-right candidates promising closer ties with the United States, a hard hand on crime and insecurity, and market-friendly economic policies.
Brazil under Lula has emerged as a key holdout against that shift, and a Bolsonaro victory on Sunday would galvanise conservatives in the region seeking to extend their winning streak to the largest country in Latin America.
The run-off will take place on October 25, 2026.
The first round on October 4 saw Bolsonaro win 47 percent of the vote compared with just more than 45 percent for Lula, with the remainder of the votes distributed among several largely conservative candidates who did not advance to the next round.
While most polls had anticipated a close race that would go to a run-off, Lula had been slightly favoured to win the first round of voting. While Bolsonaro’s margin of victory was small, his overperformance indicated a level of enduring appeal for the political right that caught many Lula supporters off guard.
In addition to Bolsonaro’s success, even as his father, former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, serves a 27-year prison sentence for his involvement in a coup plot following his loss to Lula in 2022, right-wing candidates also racked up wins in legislative races across the country.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, simply referred to as Lula, is the incumbent president and the candidate for the Workers Party, or PT.
His time in office has been defined by an effort to pair political democracy with material improvement for the country’s poor and efforts to build ties between developing, non-Western countries on the global stage.
The 80-year-old is seeking his fourth, non-consecutive term, hoping that his record of popularity and support for social programmes, credited by supporters with transforming the country, will help stave off a Bolsonaro win.
Lula clinched a third term in 2022, marking a dramatic comeback following a stint in prison based on corruption charges that were later overturned following revelations of prosecutorial impropriety.
But a highly polarised political landscape has hindered Lula’s ability to usher in ambitious and sweeping reforms during his third term.
Notable successes, such as sharp drops in unemployment and poverty and tackling deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, have been countered by rising household indebtedness that has strained families across the country.
A corruption scandal centring on disgraced banker Daniel Vorcaro has also implicated powerful figures and institutions across the political spectrum, including Bolsonaro himself as well as several members of the country’s Supreme Court, a target of right-wing ire for the conviction and sentencing of the elder Bolsonaro.
Senator Flavio Bolsonaro is running as the candidate of the right-wing Liberal Party.
The 45-year-old has emerged as the de facto leader of the country’s political right, filling a role previously held by his father before his conviction for a plot to remain in power despite his loss to Lula in 2022.
The younger Bolsonaro has sought to project a more polished image than his father while pledging continuity with many of his beliefs and policy priorities and promising to fight for his release from prison if elected.
He has pledged a militarised approach towards crime and insecurity posed by organised gangs in close partnership with the administration of United States President Donald Trump, who has sought to expand US military involvement across Latin America through ties with right-wing allies in the name of combatting crime.
Bolsonaro has also promised to rein in inflation and government spending, with an adviser stating that he would implement a debt ceiling if elected.
In the days after the first round, Bolsonaro has said he would “redemocratise” Brazil by reforming the constitution. The constitution was put in place after Brazil’s return to democracy in the 1980s, and Bolsonaro’s father has long expressed open nostalgia for the dictatorship period. There’s heavy speculation that Bolsonaro could be seeking to reform the judiciary, after his father’s legal setbacks. He has also promised to restore tax cuts for the events sector.
While many members of the PT were despondent following Bolsonaro’s first-round victory, Lula quickly urged his supporters to rally for the run-off and threw himself into campaigning.
He has also taken credit for his party’s long-sought constitutional amendment to reduce the six-day work week and promised free public transport on weekends.
Pro-Lula demonstrations in cities across the country have attracted millions of people, helping galvanise the president’s voters and cut into Bolsonaro’s lead. Bolsonaro has held his own rallies, hoping to capitalise on momentum and consolidate support from other conservative parties.
The two candidates held a combative debate on October 18, exchanging insults and accusing each other of corruption.
Questions of outside intervention have also been a theme in the campaign’s closing days, with US social media giant Meta facing allegations that it restricted pro-Lula activity online in a bid to support Bolsonaro.
Concerns about foreign interference, in particular from the US, have loomed over the campaign since the beginning.
The Trump administration has repeatedly sought to intervene in Brazilian politics, previously introducing steep tariffs and penalties against judicial officials in a bid to have the case against the elder Bolsonaro tossed out and mirroring rhetoric on the Brazilian right to cast doubt on the reliability of the country’s voting system.
Trump has himself used false claims of widespread fraud to ignore unfavourable election results, and observers have expressed concern that the US could throw its support behind Bolsonaro based on such claims even if he were to lose the race.
After his victory in the first round, Bolsonaro emerged as the race’s de facto frontrunner. But polls continue to show a close race, with Lula cutting into Bolsonaro’s lead but continuing to trail within the margin of error.
Speculation that Bolsonaro might pull ahead decisively following the first round, after other conservative candidates failed to advance to the run-off, has not yet appeared in new polls.
A Nexus poll released on Monday showed Bolsonaro winning 46.5 percent of the vote in the second round, with Lula taking 45.9 percent. A poll from the previous week had shown Bolsonaro with 47.9 percent and Lula with 45.1 percent.
Another poll by AtlasIntel and Bloomberg, also released on Monday, showed Bolsonaro with 49.8 percent versus 47.6 percent for Lula. An October 9 poll had shown Bolsonaro with 51.1 percent and Lula with 45.7.
A Quaest poll released on October 21 showed Bolsonaro’s lead continuing to drop, with Lula winning 44 percent and Bolsonaro 45 percent.
Published On 19 Oct 202619 Oct 2026
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro fired off a barrage of personal attacks during their first debate a week before a tight presidential run-off.
In a chaotic exchange on Sunday, the two men called each other “liar” multiple times, accused each other of corruption, dragged up various scandals, and clashed on issues from public security to healthcare.
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Lula said Bolsonaro was “a habitual liar” and a “thug”, and physically distanced himself on stage from the candidate he called a “militiaman”, alluding to his alleged ties to Rio de Janeiro’s paramilitary groups.
Bolsonaro, who led the first-round election with 47 percent to Lula’s 45 percent, said it was better to keep Lula at a distance “because my wallet could be stolen”.
Throughout the debate, Bolsonaro, 45, the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, paced behind Lula, shaking his head, smirking and scoffing as his adversary spoke.
The 80-year-old Lula, who is seeking a fourth term, demanded an explanation regarding a corruption investigation involving the older Bolsonaro, a question his opponent dodged.
The younger Bolsonaro responded by calling Lula a “clown”, and then parried by bringing up a potential corruption case involving one of the president’s sons.
Jair Bolsonaro has been under house arrest while serving a 27-year sentence connected to efforts to overturn the 2022 election, which he lost to Lula.
Flavio Bolsonaro hammered away at the top concerns of Brazilians, such as the cost of living and crime, and accused Lula of “reckless spending” to get re-elected, referring to various social measures the president has announced during the campaign.
Lula countered by asking Bolsonaro about his plans to emulate the drastic public spending cuts implemented by Argentina’s right-wing president, Javier Milei.
Bolsonaro dodged the question throughout the debate and pivoted to different topics.
When his father’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic came up, Bolsonaro admitted that this “wasn’t an area where we saw the best results during Bolsonaro’s presidency. I’ll offer a mea culpa here.”
Lula also sought to portray his opponent as out of touch with poor Brazilians, saying Bolsonaro had never used the country’s public healthcare system or taken a bus.
“My opponent only knows about buses from books. He has never even stepped foot on one. He has no idea what the world of work is like,” Lula said.
Ahead of Sunday’s debate, supporters of each candidate gathered en masse in public to show their allegiance.
Pro-Bolsonaro crowds wearing Brazil’s national colours of yellow, green and blue packed Paulista Avenue in Sao Paulo’s financial centre, where the candidate addressed the crowd.
Lula supporters wearing red, symbolic of his Workers’ Party, filled Brasilia’s plaza of government buildings, while students backing the president protested against Bolsonaro in Rio de Janeiro.
“We need the current government to remain in power. If another government comes in, we’re, excuse my language, screwed,” said Lula supporter Sonia Maria at the Brasilia rally.
“I don’t like bandits. Out with Lula!” said Bolsonaro backer Vera de Sousa in Sao Paulo.
Also on Sunday, Brazil’s federal police asked the country’s Supreme Court to open an investigation into Bolsonaro over a money laundering accusation involving a lawyer close to him.
The presidential candidate is already under investigation for his links to Daniel Vorcaro, a disgraced former banker who financed a movie about Jair Bolsonaro’s life.
Lula spent 580 days in prison in 2018 and 2019 on a corruption conviction that was later annulled over flaws in the investigation and legal proceedings.
Polls suggest a close race for the October 25 run-off, with Flavio Bolsonaro holding a slight advantage after finishing nearly 2 percentage points ahead of Lula in the first round on October 4.
Both candidates hope to engage the 33 million voters who stayed home in the first round, equal to about one in five eligible voters.
Sunday’s debate was the first between Lula and Bolsonaro after the candidates both declined previous opportunities. A second debate is scheduled for October 23, just ahead of the runoff.
President Trump has recently developed a renewed appreciation for the importance of elections. Unfortunately for Venezuelans, he seems to have discovered it in Ukraine. Last week, he called for Volodymyr Zelensky to face voters, apparently unconvinced that an ongoing Russian invasion and martial law constitute sufficient reasons to postpone an election. In Venezuela, where his administration removed Nicolás Maduro nine months ago, elections would apparently be premature.
There are legitimate reasons to prepare carefully for elections, particularly given the condition of Venezuela’s electoral institutions. But nine months into the transition, the more interesting question is no longer simply why Delcy Rodríguez and Washington might prefer to postpone them. It is whether other actors, including some of those who have spent years demanding political change, are developing reasons to prefer the current arrangement as well.
Every additional month gives the ruling elite more time to influence the terms under which its own future will be decided. Cooperation in the oil industry is advancing, economic relations are being restored, and American companies have opportunities that were largely unavailable before Maduro’s removal. An election would introduce uncertainty into a relationship that has become increasingly useful to the Trump administration. That does not mean Washington has abandoned the idea of elections, but it does mean that postponing them carries fewer immediate costs than it otherwise might.
The calculation is not limited to governments and foreign investors. Venezuelan businesses are also beginning to see opportunities in the new environment. The prospect of renewed oil production, investment in electricity infrastructure, fewer financial restrictions, and improved international connections offers reasons to invest in a country that many had spent years trying to leave.
What happens if Venezuelans begin to associate the present arrangement with the prospect of economic recovery?
For a sector of Venezuelan society, the appeal may be even simpler. After years of economic collapse, shortages, political confrontation, and mass emigration, the possibility of a more normal life matters enormously. People want reliable electricity, decent wages, functioning businesses, and the ability to travel, save, and plan for the future.
What happens if Venezuelans begin to associate the present arrangement with the prospect of economic recovery? A Venezuelan can continue supporting María Corina Machado while becoming increasingly reluctant to jeopardize the economic opportunities that Washington’s accommodation with Delcy appears to offer. And those opportunities do not even have to materialize fully for the calculation to change. Businesses make investments based on expectations, families make plans around the possibility of better incomes, and people who have spent years waiting for conditions to improve may be understandably hesitant to embrace another period of uncertainty. Their political preferences may remain exactly where they were, even as their willingness to bear the costs of political change begins to diminish.
This creates a peculiar possibility for Venezuela’s transition. The government could become more difficult to dislodge without becoming more popular. Economic normalization could make the existing arrangement increasingly tolerable to people who would still vote to replace it if given the opportunity. And the longer elections are postponed, the more time those expectations have to develop into economic interests that depend, or appear to depend, on the continuation of the status quo. Supporting political change and accepting the practical benefits of the present arrangement are not mutually exclusive.
This distinction matters because Delcy does not need to become popular for her government to become easier to live with. Nor does chavismo need to recover the support it enjoyed under Hugo Chávez. It may be enough that Venezuelans who would prefer a different government become increasingly reluctant to risk the improvements they are beginning to anticipate.
For traditional opposition parties, parliamentary, regional, and municipal elections offer opportunities that a presidential contest does not.
That creates a problem for the opposition. Machado may retain considerable popular support, but popular support does not automatically translate into pressure for an election. People can agree about who they want to govern them while disagreeing about how urgently the question needs to be settled, particularly when the alternative appears to involve another period of uncertainty.
The negotiating opposition may have reasons of its own to be comfortable with a slower timetable. For traditional opposition parties, parliamentary, regional, and municipal elections offer opportunities that a presidential contest does not. These are elections in which established party organizations, local networks, and political machinery matter considerably more than the popularity of any single national leader. Holding them before a presidential election could allow those parties to rebuild their institutional presence and strengthen their negotiating position within the opposition, including in relation to Machado. That does not mean they necessarily oppose her becoming president, or that they are deliberately working to postpone an election. But the order in which elections are held could have significant consequences for the balance of power within the opposition itself.
There is, of course, another possibility. Economic recovery could strengthen civil society, give independent businesses more room to operate, and make a democratic transition easier. The return of investment and international connections need not come at the expense of political freedom.
The trouble is that nothing about economic normalization guarantees democratization, particularly when the institutions that determine whether elections take place remain under the control of the existing government.
Today’s Venezuelan authorities have taken a different approach. Elections are something to be held after the necessary reforms, agreements, and guarantees have been secured. Some of those conditions are reasonable, but without a deadline there is little to prevent the process from continuing indefinitely. The government can always identify another problem to resolve, Washington can always find another reason to prioritize stability, and some businesses and private sector leaders can always argue that the country needs more time to consolidate its recovery.
The danger is not necessarily that Delcy Rodríguez herself intends to remain interim president forever. It is that an arrangement nobody originally expected to last may become sufficiently useful, or simply tolerable, that ending it stops being an urgent priority.
Venezuelans do not have to choose between economic recovery and democracy. But unless elections become a concrete part of the political process, they may find themselves enjoying some of the benefits of a transition without ever reaching its intended destination.
Nearly 40 years have passed since a Californian was president.
Several have pursued the White House in the decades since Ronald Reagan ambled into retirement, in January 1989. But not a one succeeded. Kamala Harris, who was saved from political purgatory when Joe Biden chose her as his running mate, came closest — though not close — in 2024.
The 2028 race could bring at least three more California contestants, none of whom seem likely to end the state’s presidential dry spell.
Some of that speaks to the individual flaws and political frailties of those who are, at the least, eyeing a 2028 bid: Harris, outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom and five-term Silicon Valley Rep. Ro Khanna.
The problem they all face is their return address.
“There was a cliche that dates to the ‘60s or ‘70s, or maybe before that,” said Matthew Dallek, who was born and raised in Los Angeles and now teaches political management at George Washington University. “‘As California goes, so goes the nation.’ I don’t think that world exists anymore.”
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Or as Jim Newton, a former L.A. Times reporter and editor and now a biographer and California historian, bluntly put it, the state has migrated in the minds of many beyond its golden confines “from a kind of serious west of the West place to a kind of hippy-dippy silly place.”
Not necessarily an accurate assessment on the part of those naysayers, but a damning perception nonetheless.
In many ways, Reagan and Harris serve as ideal exemplars of their home state and how it’s changed — along with attitudes toward California — in the decades between Reagan’s 1980 election as president and what would be, in 2028, Harris’ third try.
(The former vice president hasn’t ruled in or out another White House bid. Newsom has said he won’t run if Harris does. Khanna is in limbo until after November’s midterm election.)
Reagan was a product of the nation’s heartland and a California transplant. The state that launched him to the White House was predominantly white and Republican, an arsenal of the Cold War and the birthplace of a grass-roots anti-tax movement that swept the nation. His conservatism was seen by many as an antidote to the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s.
“California was in some ways on the cutting edge of American politics because it was signaling the direction in which our national politics were trending,” said Dallek, who wrote a book about Reagan’s first electoral victory, in the 1966 gubernatorial race. “Reagan was kind of the tip of the spear.”
Although leaning to the right, especially in presidential races, California was a robust two-party state until the mid-1990s, with several Democrats holding statewide office and long periods when Democrats controlled one or both houses of the Legislature. That competitiveness, along with California’s sizable cache of electoral votes, helped boost Reagan’s political standing nationally.
Harris was born in Oakland, the daughter of a father from Jamaica and a mother from India. By the time the Democrat left for Washington in 2017, to serve as a U.S. senator, then vice president, California had turned as blue as a cloudless desert sky.
California had more brown than white residents. The military was no longer the all-mighty economic engine it had been. And with Democrats in hegemonic control of Sacramento, the state had become the country’s preeminent bastion of liberal values and policies.
Many see that progressivism as overly obsessed with identity politics, personal pronouns and the like, ignoring practicalities and the day-to-day concerns of most voters.
California “has sort of gone off the deep end,” said Ken Khachigian, a longtime conservative strategist in Orange County, who worked for both Reagan and Richard M. Nixon.
(Between the two, California had a seat in the White House for more than half a roughly 40-year stretch. Nixon served two terms as vice president before winning the presidency in 1968. His second term was cut short when the Watergate scandal drove him from office.)
Khachigian noted that Republicans rule over states that are just as politically lopsided as California: Indiana, Mississippi, Idaho and Utah, for instance. “But they don’t seem crazed like California,” he said.
That’s obviously one partisan’s perspective.
But Dallek agreed it’s no longer a political asset to come from California, which much of the country sees as “pretty far to the left.”
“And somewhat ungovernable at this point,” he added. “You have incredible, insane amounts of wealth concentrated in places like Silicon Valley and parts of Los Angeles and then you have incredible amounts of poverty and homelessness…. There’s not a sense that what’s happening in California really resonates across the country.”
There is a case to be made that California is great and good in so many ways, beyond just its incredible natural splendor.
It has the world’s fourth-largest economy, as Newsom and others never tire of pointing out. It remains on the cutting edge of culture, research and technology. It’s still a place that offers fertile ground for the imagination, for reinvention and for second chances.
Newcomers, from other states and abroad, are welcomed like in few other places. The unofficial California credo — live and let live — makes it possible to be one’s authentic self without fear of shame, ostracism or constraint.
Harris, Newsom, Khanna or any Democrat hailing from California will doubtless argue those virtues are what makes the state truly shine, convinced it’s a model they can sell the rest of America.
Good luck with that.
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The L.A. Times Special:Take a breath. Educate yourself. Then vote.
Until next time,
mzb
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