RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 20, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - President Jair Bolsonaro narrowed his gap with challenger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva 11 days before Brazilians cast ballots in the country's second-round vote, a new poll released Wednesday showed.

Leftist Lula has 52 percent support against 48 percent for far-right Bolsonaro, the Datafolha institute found, narrowing the spread of the previous week, which was 53 percent to 47 percent.

The figures exclude voters who plan to cast blank or spoiled ballots -- five percent of respondents, Datafolha estimates.

The margin of error for the poll was plus or minus two percentage points.
Lula won the first round of the presidential election October 2 with 48 percent to Bolsonaro's 43 percent. The runoff is October 30.

Bolsonaro, a retired military officer, and Lula, a onetime union boss, have both focused their campaigns on winning undecided voters or those who say they may not mark the ballot for either candidate.

The presidential campaign has been plagued by disinformation and insults, including charges of cannibalism, pedophilia and links to organized crime.

Bolsonaro and his backers still simmer over how polls underestimated his support in the first round.

Datafolha said voters who indicated to pollsters that they might still change their minds swung toward Bolsonaro before ballots were cast.

Bolsonaro's government sought to open investigations of polling firms but were stopped by the judiciary. Still, allies of the president seek to establish fines and even criminal charges against polling firms that miss the mark on actual outcomes.

The Datafolha poll queried 2,912 people in 181 Brazilian cities and was conducted in the past three days, it said.