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Right-wing Sen. Flavio Bolsonaro finished ahead of left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the first round of Brazil’s presidential election Sunday, setting up an Oct. 25 runoff that could return the country’s right to power.

Getting into it: With about 98% of votes counted, Bolsonaro, 45, whose father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, is in prison, had about 47.3% of the vote to Lula’s 44.8%, not enough to avoid a second round. The result caught pollsters off guard, with Datafolha putting Lula ahead 45% to 42% the day before the vote. Other right-wing candidates took a combined 5% to 7%, and analysts expect most of those voters to back Bolsonaro in the runoff, leaving the 80-year-old Lula, who is seeking a fourth term, needing to win over the roughly 20% of voters who didn’t show up. Conservatives also scored big wins in congressional and state races, and Michelle Bolsonaro, the elder Bolsonaro’s wife, won a Senate seat.

“Brazil wants change and I am very happy with the results,” Bolsonaro said, declaring “the end of the era” of Lula’s Workers’ Party. Lula told supporters that “starting tomorrow, we begin a new campaign,” warning that Bolsonaro “represents uncertainty.”

The race has been one of the nastiest in Brazil’s history, with both candidates skipping the major TV debates and the campaign dominated by personal attacks and a banking scandal that has reached both sides. Bolsonaro is under investigation over millions he raised from jailed banker Daniel Vorcaro for a biopic about his father, though he denies wrongdoing. He has promised to pardon his father (who got 27 years for trying to overturn his 2022 loss), cut government spending, treat drug gangs as terrorist organizations, and copy El Salvador’s maximum-security prison model.

Lula has campaigned on expanding welfare and debt relief and defending Brazil’s “sovereignty” against President Trump, who hasn’t formally endorsed anyone but hosted Bolsonaro at the White House.

This all comes as Lula’s allies accuse the Trump administration of trying to sway the race, after the US shut down consular services in Brazil on the Friday before the election and reports that it planned to fund groups opposing Brazil’s Supreme Court, though the US denies interfering and Brazil’s top electoral judge said there was no sign of outside meddling.