Which Brazilian state has the fiercest race for a seat in Congress?

Brazil’s 2026 election is drawing a level of competition for the Chamber of Deputies that exceeds the average contest for places at the University of São Paulo. An Estadão survey based on Superior Electoral Court data found 15 candidates for every Chamber seat, compared with 12.7 candidates per place in the university’s entrance exam.

The Federal District leads the congressional contest, with 20.8 candidates competing for each seat. That is comparable to the competition for Veterinary Medicine at USP. Amapá ranks lowest, with 11.1 candidates per seat, similar to the university’s Economics, Business Administration and Pharmacy courses.

The Superior Electoral Court lists about 7,700 candidates for the 513 Chamber seats. The seats are distributed according to the populations of Brazil’s states and the Federal District. The Senate will renew 54 seats, two-thirds of its total, with two seats contested in each federal unit. In all, 316 candidates are seeking Senate seats.

The comparison uses overall averages from the 2026 Fuvest first phase, including open competition and quotas for public-school students and for Black, mixed-race and Indigenous candidates. Fuvest recorded 111,400 applicants for 8,700 USP places. The Senate race is less crowded, averaging 5.8 candidates per seat, a level similar to USP’s Physics Engineering, Production Engineering and Chemical Engineering courses. In São Paulo, the Chamber contest has 15.9 candidates per seat, while the Senate contest has eight.

The article also points to the political stakes in the Senate. Parties or coalitions that win most of the seats could gain an advantage in votes on bills and in the choice of the chamber’s next president. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro are focusing on alliances to strengthen their Senate bases, while state-level arrangements involving parties such as PSD and União Brasil diverge between the PT and PL.