Rousseff, With 52%, and Neves, With 48%, Are Technically Tied, Shows Datafolha Poll

10/25/2014 - 19h53

A Datafolha survey held on Friday (24) and Saturday (25) shows that the second round of the presidential election will end with a tight dispute between President Rousseff (PT) and Senator Aécio Neves (PSDB).

Rousseff has 52% of the valid votes - which don't include blank, null as well as those who are undecided - while Neves reached 48%.

It is a technical tie at the limit of the margin of error, which is 2%.

The greater probability is that Rousseff is ahead. That is because the actual tie only occurs in a combination that considers the highest margin of error for each in opposite ways (down for Rousseff and up for Neves).

In the previous survey, on Wednesday (22) and Thursday (23), Rousseff had 53% and Neves, 47% - a difference out of the margin of error.

Rousseff's decline shows that her advantage has stopped growing.

In total votes, the figures for the last survey of the second round show Rousseff with 47% and Neves with 43%. Blank and null votes amount to 5%. The remaining 5% are undecided.

The numbers of the latest survey cannot be mistaken for an attempt to forecast the result of the election on Sunday (26).

The survey is a portrait of the presidential race in the places where the interviews were held. As most of them were held on Friday (24), the survey cannot capture precisely
possible changes in opinion that may occur on Saturday (25). Nor can it identify changes on the day of the election.

Datafolha also investigated each candidate's rejection rates. Neves is rejected by 41% and Rousseff by 38%.

Requested by Folha and TV Globo, Datafolha interviewed 19,318 voters in 400 cities.

The reliability rate is 95%. The survey was registered at the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) under number BR-1210/2014.

Translated by THOMAS MUELLO

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	Editoria de Arte/Folhapress

	Editoria de Arte/Folhapress