1. Prediction market

In the presidential contract, Lula closed the confirmed reading of August 18, 10:32 PM BRT, at 63.50% (USD 8.67M), down 1.00pp, and Flávio Bolsonaro at 32.05% (USD 8.62M), up 0.60pp. The distance between them narrowed 1.60pp to 31.45pp, a second day running of convergence: it was 37.05pp on August 16 and 33.05pp on the 17th. Total accumulated volume in the presidential book adds up to USD 128.96M.

Ronaldo Caiado had the strongest relative move of the day, from 0.25% to 0.80% (USD 6.34M), and returned above the 0.5% cut the panel uses to separate price from noise. No superlative: he is recovering from the series low, 0.50% on August 15, and is not near the high, which is 2.40%, from June 19. Of the 86 days recorded since May 21, 84 had a value equal to or above today's.

Renan Santos rose to 4.40% (USD 10.11M) and Pablo Marçal repeated 0.90%, with volume going from USD 1.21M to USD 1.66M in one day. Romeu Zema fell to 0.15%.

The sharpest crossing is in placement. In the third place contract, Renan Santos jumped from 52.50% to 57.00% and Caiado gave ground from 38.50% to 37.00%: the distance between them reopened from 14.00pp to 20.00pp, after two days of narrowing. In the second place contract, Flávio Bolsonaro marks 88.50%.

The Supreme Court impeachment contract stayed flat at 3.40% (USD 84 thousand) and the PL marks 77.00% in the Senate, against 16.35% for the MDB.

2. What the pollsters recorded

No new national poll was published, and the latest is still BTG/Nexus of August 17 (n=2,003, field August 14 to 16, registration BR-03317/2026), which measured stability: Lula went from 40% to 41% and Flávio Bolsonaro from 35% to 36%, so the distance between them stayed at the same 5 points, and the runoff repeated 47 to 44. The electoral court ingestion read 606 records, none new.

The panel does not publish the approval figure from this round: the pollster's page carries only voting intention. The structured block stays with Genial/Quaest of August 14.

Polling calendar — next 7 days

Publication scheduled between August 19 and 25. Registered is not published. Filters: national scope and sample ≥ 1,000.

Date	Pollster	Sample	Scope	Registration	Conf.
Aug 19	Real Time Big Data	1,600	national	BR-05423/2026	0.3
Aug 21	Datafolha	2,058	national	BR-04496/2026	0.5
Aug 21	Veritá	3,840	national	BR-04006/2026	0.3

Source: public electoral court registry via the AFOS API. Samples ≥ 3,000 in bold. The table lists the 3 NATIONAL polls in the window; 62 state records from the same period were left out by scope. All three are already in the field, and Datafolha of August 21 is the first to include Pablo Marçal, who today has a price in the market and no ballot-box measurement.

3. What the press covered

Pablo Marçal asked the electoral court to correct his asset declaration, and declared wealth fell from R$ 7.4 billion to R$ 149.9 million, according to G1 and Valor Econômico, which belong to the same group.

Two state polls came out and neither enters the national panel. In Paraná, Flávio Bolsonaro stands at 52% against 35% for Lula in the runoff, according to Poder360 and CartaCapital. In Pernambuco, Lula starts at 58% against 24%, according to a survey reported by UOL.

Tarcísio de Freitas defended a gentle fiscal adjustment and said Brazil does not need the Milei solution, according to Valor Econômico. UOL Notícias published profiles of the 13 presidential candidates, and the PSD confirmed Ronaldo Caiado as its candidate, according to Acessa.com.

4. Divergences of the day

Market × poll: the price narrowed 5.60pp in two days and the poll said the distance did not change. BTG/Nexus of August 17 lifted Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro by 1 point each, which leaves the difference between them intact and fits inside the house's own 2-point margin. A measurement that does not narrow cannot explain a narrowing.

Price × price, on Ronaldo Caiado: he rose from 0.25% to 0.80% in the contract on winning the election and fell from 38.50% to 37.00% in the one on finishing third. These are different questions and the panel does not add them together, but opposite directions on the same day is the clearest crossing of the round.

Price × ballot box, on who is third: BTG/Nexus gives Caiado 5% and Renan Santos 4%. In the third place contract the market does the opposite, and today it reinforced that: Renan went to 57.00% and Caiado to 37.00%, reopening to 20.00pp a distance that stood at 14.00pp.

Em síntese

The distance between Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro narrowed for the second day running, and the ballot box did not see it. It was 37.05pp on August 16, 33.05pp on the 17th and 31.45pp today, a total of 5.60pp in two days. The only national poll of the week measured both rising 1 point each, which keeps the difference intact.
Ronaldo Caiado moved both ways at once. He more than tripled in the contract on winning, from 0.25% to 0.80%, and gave ground in the third place one, from 38.50% to 37.00%. Winning the election and finishing third are different questions, and in this round they pointed opposite ways.
Renan Santos reopened the lead he had been losing. In the third place contract he jumped 4.50pp and his distance to Caiado went back from 14.00pp to 20.00pp, undoing two days of convergence. In declared intention the order is still reversed, with Caiado ahead.

Fontes consultadas

matérias com link direto para a notícia (veículos âncora):

matérias secundárias (URL Google News redirect — clique resolve à matéria):

Fontes técnicas: Polymarket (live quotes via the AFOS proxy, fetched Aug 18 10:32 PM BRT), electoral court registry (official electoral polls).

August 18, 2026