Trump ‘happy to have helped’ Bolsonaro reach runoff in Brazil

Former President Trump on Monday took some credit for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s performance in Brazil’s elections a day earlier, where the right-wing incumbent outperformed polling expectations to force a runoff.

“So happy to have helped a great person and leader get into the difficult to achieve, with other Conservative candidates and certain difficult rules and regulations, run off for President of Brazil,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

“The Voters made a great decision in giving such strong backing to the brilliant and very hard working current President, Jair Bolsonaro. Now, for the sake of Brazil and its future greatness, they have to get Jair over the finish line, against a Radical Left Socialist, on October 30th. Go Bolsonaro!!!” Trump posted.

Trump, in a post shortly after the results came in, congratulated Bolsonaro for “greatly ‘outperforming’ inaccurate early Fake News Media polls.”

Bolsonaro, who was dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics” upon his election four years ago, advanced to a runoff against former leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. With nearly all of the ballots counted, da Silva received roughly 48 percent of the vote to Bolsonaro’s 43 percent. Neither candidate exceeded 50 percent, meaning there will be an Oct. 30 runoff between the two men.

Polls leading up to the race showed Bolsonaro facing a wide deficit and that da Silva could prevail without needing a runoff, leading Trump and his allies to compare it to recent U.S. elections where Trump over-performed polling averages.

Like Trump, Bolsonaro has also cast doubt on Brazil’s election infrastructure and has not said definitively whether he will accept the results of the election.

“There’s always the possibility of something abnormal happening in a fully computerized system,” Bolsonaro said Sunday, according to The New York Times.