Minas Gerais once again appears as the main territory in dispute in the 2026 presidential election. The new round of Genial/Quaest released this Wednesday (6) shows President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) numerically ahead of Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) in the state, but still within the margin of error.
In the first round scenario, Lula registers 33% of voting intentions, against 27% for Flávio. In the second round, the PT member appears with 52% compared to 48% for the PL senator. The technical tie keeps Minas as one of the most unpredictable states in the presidential race.
The political weight of the state helps explain the parties’ attention to the result. With more than 16 million voters, Minas is the second largest electoral college in the country. Since redemocratization, all candidates elected president have also won in the state.
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The Quaest survey indicates a more favorable scenario for Lula than in previous disputes. In 2018, Fernando Haddad lost Minas to Jair Bolsonaro by a wide margin. In 2022, Lula beat Bolsonaro by a minimal difference of just 0.2 percentage points. Now, the president opens up a four-point lead over Flávio in the second round, albeit in a technical draw.
Even so, the Minas Gerais environment continues to be treated as problematic by Palácio do Planalto. The main reason is the uncertainty of Lula’s state platform.
The president was betting on senator Rodrigo Pacheco (PSB-MG) as a name capable of running for the Minas Gerais government and structuring a broad alliance in the state. Behind the scenes, Lula pressured Pacheco for months to take on the candidacy for Palácio Tiradentes. 
The strategy entered into crisis after the rejection of Jorge Messias’ name to the STF in the Senate. Part of the PT began to distrust Pacheco’s role in the coordination that led to the government’s defeat. The tension increased uncertainty about the senator’s willingness to lead the Planalto mining project. 
The lack of definition already worries PT leaders in the state. Former mayor of Contagem Marília Campos, pre-candidate for the Senate, publicly demanded a definition from Pacheco and stated that the PT needs to quickly consolidate a competitive platform in Minas. 
Without a clear response from the senator, the party began to discuss alternatives, including an approach with the former mayor of Belo Horizonte Alexandre Kalil (PDT), who intends to run again for the Minas Gerais government.
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On the Bolsonaro side, the scenario is also far from pacified. Although Flávio leads in states such as São Paulo, Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul, Minas has not yet consolidated a single right-wing name for the state government.
The main local force today is senator Cleitinho Azevedo (Republicans), who leads the scenarios for the government of Minas in the Quaest polls.  Governor Romeu Zema (Novo), in turn, maintains his own presidential pre-candidacy, which makes it difficult to automatically unify the conservative camp around Flávio Bolsonaro.
The combination of fragmented platforms, volatile voters and historical weight turned Minas into the main point of attention for the 2026 election.
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The state today has a rare situation: Lula appears competitive, but without a consolidated state structure; Flávio advances nationally, but still without clear political control of the Minas Gerais territory.
