MAGA World Is Counting on a Bolsonaro Win in Brazil - Mother Jones

Published October 13, 2026 03:28PMHow we reported: Editors from Triathlete, alongside other media outlets and tri industry reps have sent counters to Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, to count bikes and bike components at the Ironman World Championship for decades. This year, former pro and tri bike expert T. J. Tollakson assisted in counting power meters, while managing editor Abby Levene counted wheelsets. I worked the first shift of the bike count at the 2026 Hawaii Ironman World Championship, and I’ve been part of the bike count at the world champs going back to 2006. You see a lot of trends come and go in that time, and some that stick. Sure, the winning bike brand is the headline grabber, but the most interesting stuff lies way beneath the surface.

On Sunday night, as the scale of the far-right triumph in Brazil sank in, an adapted football chant rang out in one of Rio’s most leftwing areas. “Let’s turn this around, Lu-laaaaa! Let’s turn this around, Lu-laaaaa! Let’s turn this around, Lu-laaaaa!” crestfallen progressives bellowed while drowning their sorrows after witnessing an excruciating election setback for their leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. But the scale of the challenge facing the veteran leftist looks immense after Flávio Bolsonaro’s shock first-round win, which analysts attribute to a complex lattice of social, political and religious phenomena. “Flávio Bolsonaro’s result shows that Bolsonarismo is a far-right movement … that has put down deep roots in Brazilian society,” said Bernardo Mello Franco, a political columnist for the Rio broadsheet O Globo. “His father [Jair Bolsonaro] was convicted and jailed for attempting a coup d’état [in 2022-23] yet despite this, his allies won elections across the country, and his son is the frontrunner in the second round of the presidential election.”Among the main drivers behind Bolsonaro’s strong showing:1.

Brazil’s presidential race will go to a second round after the far-right candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro, beat the incumbent leftwing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, but failed to secure the outright majority he needed to avoid a runoff. With 99.9% of votes counted, the 45-year-old son of the disgraced former president, Jair Bolsonaro, had won 47%, meaning he will now face a 25 October showdown with his 80-year-old rival. Lula received 45.1%. Bolsonaro received 56.1m votes to Lula’s 53.8m. Bolsonaro will go into the second round as strong favourite and is likely to be boosted by the migration of votes from the election’s other rightwing candidates, who included Ronaldo Caiado, who secured 2.1%, and Renan Santos, who won 2.2%. Brazil’s far-right put in an even stronger than expected showing, with a succession of Bolsonarista politicians winning congressional or gubernatorial races. They included Jair Bolsonaro’s second son, Carlos Bolsonaro, and his wife, Michelle Bolsonaro, who both won seats in the senate. Bolsonaro’s youngest son, Jair Renan, was elected to the lower house of congress.