Rousseff and Neves Almost Neck and Neck 11 Days Before Second Round

10/16/2014 - 09h05

With just 11 days to go until the second round of Brazil's presidential election, the latest Datafolha poll, taken on Tuesday (14) and Wednesday (15), suggests that the race is still close to call.

Senator Aécio Neves (PSDB) has 51% of the valid votes, with the incumbent Dilma Rousseff (PT) on 49%.

It is a technical tie, given that the margin of error is two points either way.

The poll shows no change from the first Datafolha simulation of the second round, which was conducted on the 8th and 9th of this month.

Neves has 45% of the total votes, Rousseff 43%. In the previous survey, they both had one percentage point more.

Those likely to spoil their votes vary between 4% and 6%, while 6% of voters remain undecided.

Datafolha also investigated voters' degree of certainty. Neves and Rousseff were tied here also: 42% of voters said they were "certain" to vote for their chosen candidate.

18% said that they "might" vote for Neves (down from 22% in the last poll); while 15% said they "might" vote for Rousseff (up from 14%).

38% of voters said there was "no way" they would vote for Neves (up from 34%), while 42% said the same for Rousseff (down from 43%).

The Rousseff administration is seen positively by 40% of those interviewed. This is up from 39% in the previous poll.

21% of those interviewed consider her administration to be "bad" or "terrible", down from 22% in the previous poll. 38% view the government as "okay", with no change from last week.

1% of those interviewed said they didn't know.

On average, the mark given to the government was 6.2, the same as in the last poll.

Datafolha interviewed 9,081 voters in 366 municipalities. The level of accuracy is 95% (in 100 surveys with the same methodology, the results would fall within the margin of error 95 times).

Translated by TOM GATEHOUSE

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	Editoria de Arte/Folhapress