Who becomes governor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes or Douglas Ruas?
Rio de Janeiro has not had an elected governor since March, and the man about to become one lost this election before in 2018.
On October 4, the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro elects a governor.
Cláudio Castro, who held the job, resigned on March 23, and the next day Brazil's electoral court convicted him of abusing his position during the 2022 campaign and barred him from public office for eight years. His deputy had quit the year before. With nobody left to take over, the job passed to the president of the state's own court of justice, who has been running Rio de Janeiro ever since.
Eduardo Paes is the man expected to take it off him. He was mayor of the city twice and ran it through the 2016 Olympics, and he resigned from City Hall in March to enter this race. Polymarket's market on it predicts a 94.55% probability that he becomes governor, which makes it the highest-probability contract on any contested election it lists as of today.
Paes has lost this race before, and from a better position than Douglas Ruas is in now. In August 2018, Datafolha had Paes at 18% and a former judge named Wilson Witzel at 1%. Six weeks later, Witzel won the first round with 41.28%, and then the runoff by 59.87 to 40.13.
What made that possible was how many people had not decided yet. In 2018, a third of Rio told pollsters they did not know who they would vote for, and Witzel grew into that space. Datafolha asked again this month and found 4%. Paes is at 41%. Douglas Ruas, who runs the state assembly and has Flávio Bolsonaro behind him, is at 19%.
The unknown candidate who beat Paes last time is already known this time, and he is already 22 points behind.
So the only thing left that can stop him is the thing that stopped Cláudio Castro. Brazilian courts can throw a candidate out of a race for abusing public office, and two cases asking a court to do that to Eduardo Paes are open right now. A judge has already refused to act on one of them. We believe it’s highly probable that the judge will also refuse to act on the second case, which would almost certainly ensure he wins the election.
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