Datafolha: Marina ties with Dilma in the second round.
Marina Silva, the PSB candidate to replace Eduardo Campos, obtained 21% of voting intentions in the poll conducted after the former governor's death, surpassing Aécio Neves of the PSDB, who scored 20%; President Dilma has 36%; in a second-round simulation, the former senator is numerically ahead of Dilma, with 47% against 43% – a result considered a technical tie given the margin of error of two percentage points; against Aécio, Dilma would win in the second round by 47% to 39%.
SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Former senator Marina Silva appeared in a technical tie in the presidential race with Aécio Neves (PSDB) in the first round and with Dilma Rousseff (PT) in the second round, in both situations ahead of her opponents within the margin of error, showed the first electoral poll after the tragic death of candidate Eduardo Campos (PSB).
According to Datafolha, Marina, who is expected to be confirmed as the PSB's presidential candidate this week, is polling at 21 percent, ahead of Aécio's 20 percent and behind Dilma, who has 36 percent.
In the simulated second round, Marina is numerically ahead of Dilma, with 47 percent of the vote intentions compared to 43 percent for the president seeking re-election.
In the first round against Aécio and in the second against Dilma, it is a situation of a technical tie, since the margin of error of the survey is two percentage points, plus or minus.
According to Datafolha, in a second round between Dilma and Aécio, the president would win by 47 percent to 39 percent, which represents an advantage for the Workers' Party candidate over the previous poll in July, which showed 44 percent to 40 percent, with a technical tie at that time within the margin of error.
Datafolha's numbers rule out the possibility of the presidential election being decided in the first round, because Marina has almost three times the voting intentions of Campos, who appeared with 8 percent, with the former senator attracting voters who previously said they had no candidate.
The PSB presidential candidate died last Wednesday, the 13th, in a plane crash off the coast of São Paulo. Campos' sudden death made Marina, his running mate, the natural successor to the PSB candidacy.
The former senator's entry into the presidential race does not take votes away from her two main rivals: Dilma remained at 36 percent and Aécio at 20 percent in the previous Datafolha poll.
Intentions to cast null or blank votes have fallen from 13 percent in the previous poll to 8 percent, while undecided voters have decreased from 14 percent to 9 percent now, Datafolha said.
Datafolha interviewed 2.843 voters in 176 municipalities on August 14th and 15th. The survey results were published in a report on the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper website early Monday morning.
(By Cesar Bianconi)