Dilma Still Ahead in Polls, but Could Tie with Aécio in 2nd Round

07/18/2014 - 11h15

With a current rating of 36%, President Dilma Rousseff still leads in opinion polls ahead of the presidential elections later this year.

However, for the first time, polls suggest that senator Aécio Neves (PSDB - MG) would tie with her, were elections to go to a second round.

According to Datafolha, if the two were to face off today, Rousseff would collect 44% of the votes, with Neves receiving 40%.

As the margin of error is two percentage points either way, technically, the two candidates can currently be considered to be tying.

If Rousseff's opponent in the second round were former Pernambuco governor Eduardo Campos (PSB), the result would be 45% for Rousseff, with 38% for Campos.

Compared to the previous poll, taken at the beginning of July, voting intentions for the first round have changed little.

In 15 days, Rousseff's ratings have fallen from 38% to 36%. Neves' ratings have remained steady at 20%, while Campos has oscillated between 8% and 9%.

The results correspond with the percentage increase of voters whose assessment of the current government is "bad" or "dreadful". 29% of voters fall into this category, the highest percentage since Rousseff took office in 2011.

This compares to 32% who feel her administration is "good" or "excellent".

Datafolha interviewed 5,377 voters in 223 municipalities on Tuesday and Thursday this week. The survey was commissioned by Folha in partnership with TV Globo.

Translated by TOM GATEHOUSE

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	Editoria de Arte/Folhapress