Brazil's historic 2022 presidential election will likely go to a runoff on Oct. 30, after former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — the leftist who led in pre-election polls — fell short of the 50% he needed to win outright against extremist incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.
With 98% of the vote counted at 8:45 p.m. ET, Lula led by a margin of more than 5 million votes, with 48%, or 55.7 million votes, to Bolsonaro's 43.6%, or roughly 50.5 million votes.
There are fears that Bolsonaro, the right-wing incumbent, will not accept defeat after he warned that he would only leave office if he's "killed, jailed, or victorious" and has called on his base to "go to war" if the vote is "stolen."
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Bolsonaro took an early lead as results started coming in. But as in 2014, when Lula's leftist party last won a presidential election, results began to shift after the early hours of vote-counting. Results from Brazil's poorer northeastern regions, Lula's stronghold, take longer to be counted.
Lula eventually took the lead after 70% of the vote had been counted.
Polls closed at 5 p.m. local time in Brazil (2000 GMT or 4 p.m. ET). Official results can be found here: latest Brazil Election Results
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