The rapid expansion of Brazil’s evangelical population has become a central factor in Senator Flávio Bolsonaro’s competitiveness against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, supplying the constituency in which the right-wing candidate’s lead is largest and most durable.
Census data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics show evangelicals rising from about 9 percent of the population in 1991 to 15 percent in 2000, 22 percent in 2010, and 26.9 percent in 2022—roughly 47 million people aged 10 and over. Catholics remain a majority at about 57 percent, but the evangelical share is now large enough to sway close national contests. Growth has slowed since the previous decade, yet church networks, especially Pentecostal denominations such as the Assemblies of God, continue to expand their organizational reach. The Evangelical Parliamentary Front ranks among the largest blocs in Congress.
That demographic shift has aligned closely with support for the Bolsonaro family. Former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is Catholic, drew roughly 60 to 70 percent of the evangelical vote in 2018 and retained a clear majority of it in 2022. Academic studies that match municipal census figures on religion with later election returns find that faster evangelical growth—particularly among Pentecostals—is associated with higher Bolsonaro vote shares in both cycles, after accounting for income, urbanization, and region. Researchers describe the link as real but partial: geography and anti-Workers’ Party sentiment explain more of the overall variance, while church mobilization adds a measurable increment concentrated in lower-income areas and parts of the Northeast.
Flávio Bolsonaro, the former president’s eldest son and the Liberal Party’s 2026 standard-bearer, has sought to lock in that base more explicitly. He identifies as evangelical, has been baptized in the Jordan River, and has campaigned in churches including Comunidade das Nações in Brasília. Polling through the campaign showed the strategy paying off in the religious breakdown even when the national race remained tight.
A BTG/Nexus survey released in early September gave him 45 percent to Lula’s 27 percent among evangelicals in a first-round scenario, and 58 percent to 31 percent in a direct runoff. Datafolha readings around the same period placed him near 62 percent among evangelicals in a second-round matchup against Lula’s 29 percent. Genial/Quaest figures were lower but still showed a double-digit advantage. In the electorate as a whole, the same polls often had Lula ahead or the two candidates within a few points of each other.
Campaign activity reflected the priority. Bolsonaro met leaders including pastor Silas Malafaia, courted Assemblies of God ministries, and told supporters that one of his first acts if elected would be to declare that “Brazil belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ”—a line his campaign later described as a planned prayer rather than a legal decree. The remark circulated widely and fed a late controversy over Our Lady of Aparecida after claims spread that he might move against the Catholic patron saint, a charge he denied.
Support inside the evangelical world has not been monolithic. Some denominations stayed neutral, and Bolsonaro’s standing in the segment dipped temporarily after public friction involving former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro and hesitation from certain pastors. Analysts note that many evangelical voters are also motivated by broader conservative positions on abortion, gender, and opposition to the Workers’ Party, not solely by denominational loyalty.
Even so, the pattern across polls and prior elections is consistent: the growing evangelical electorate is the bloc in which Flávio Bolsonaro’s advantage over Lula is most pronounced, and the one his campaign has worked hardest to consolidate.
