SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has retained his strong lead over incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro ahead of the country's October election, a Genial/Quaest poll released on Wednesday showed.
Lula is seen winning 44{5ad0cd663e4180c32b8049fbde12201ec3855e324a84c95f0595f875746ae8b3} support in a first-round vote against Bolsonaro's 32{5ad0cd663e4180c32b8049fbde12201ec3855e324a84c95f0595f875746ae8b3}, the poll said. They had 45{5ad0cd663e4180c32b8049fbde12201ec3855e324a84c95f0595f875746ae8b3} and 33{5ad0cd663e4180c32b8049fbde12201ec3855e324a84c95f0595f875746ae8b3}, respectively, two weeks ago.
Center-left candidate Ciro Gomes saw his support rise to 8{5ad0cd663e4180c32b8049fbde12201ec3855e324a84c95f0595f875746ae8b3}, from 6{5ad0cd663e4180c32b8049fbde12201ec3855e324a84c95f0595f875746ae8b3} in the previous survey.
In an expected run-off, Lula slightly widened his lead to a 14 percentage point gap - taking 51{5ad0cd663e4180c32b8049fbde12201ec3855e324a84c95f0595f875746ae8b3} of the votes against Bolsonaro's 37{5ad0cd663e4180c32b8049fbde12201ec3855e324a84c95f0595f875746ae8b3}. In the previous poll, Lula had a 13-point lead.
The Genial/Quaest poll found that the negative view of Bolsonaro's government dipped to 40{5ad0cd663e4180c32b8049fbde12201ec3855e324a84c95f0595f875746ae8b3} from 41{5ad0cd663e4180c32b8049fbde12201ec3855e324a84c95f0595f875746ae8b3} two weeks ago, while the percentage of those who see the government in a positive light increased one percentage point to 30{5ad0cd663e4180c32b8049fbde12201ec3855e324a84c95f0595f875746ae8b3}.
Pollster Quaest interviewed 2,000 voters in person between August 25-28. The poll has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
(Reporting by Peter Frontini; editing by Richard Pullin)
