2026 Alagoas general election

The 2026 Alagoas general election will be held on 4 October 2026 in the Brazilian state of Alagoas as part of the 2026 general election. Voters will elect a Governor, a Vice Governor, two Senators, 9 representatives to the Chamber of Deputies, and 27 members of the Legislative Assembly of Alagoas. If no candidate for governor receives a majority of the valid votes in the first round, a runoff will be held on 25 October 2026.

Incumbent governor Paulo Dantas, elected to a first full term in 2022 after an indirect election earlier that year, announced in October 2025 that he would not seek any office in 2026 and would complete his term. The two Senate seats up for election — those won in 2018 by Renan Calheiros and Rodrigo Cunha — are also contested; Cunha resigned his seat to serve as Vice Mayor and later Mayor of Maceió, with his alternate Eudócia Caldas taking office in the interim.

Background

Paulo Dantas, a protégé of Senator Renan Calheiros, took office as governor in May 2022 after being indirectly elected by the Legislative Assembly of Alagoas to complete the term of Renan Filho, who had resigned to run for the Senate. Dantas subsequently won the October 2022 runoff against Rodrigo Cunha for a first full term. In December 2025, Renan Filho — then Minister of Transport in the Third Lula government — confirmed he would leave the cabinet to run for governor, with Dantas's public endorsement. Renan Filho formally left the Ministry of Transport in April 2026 during the desincompatibilização deadline; on the same day, João Henrique Caldas resigned as Mayor of Maceió, with Vice Mayor Rodrigo Cunha succeeding him.

The race is widely framed as a new chapter in the long-running rivalry between the Calheiros family, led by Senator Renan Calheiros, and the Lira family, led by former Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Arthur Lira, whose father Benedito de Lira died in 2025.

Electoral system

The governor and vice governor are elected on a joint ticket by a two-round system: a candidate who receives more than half of the valid votes in the first round is elected outright; otherwise, the top two candidates advance to a runoff. Senators are elected by simple plurality, with each voter casting ballots for two candidates since two of the state's three Senate seats are up for election. Federal and state deputies are elected by open-list proportional representation.

Gubernatorial election

Candidates

• Renan Filho, economist, former Minister of Transport (2023–2026), former Senator for Alagoas (2023), former Governor of Alagoas (2015–2022), former Federal Deputy (2011–2015), and former Mayor of Murici (2005–2010).
• João Henrique Caldas (JHC), lawyer, former Mayor of Maceió (2021–2026), former Federal Deputy (2015–2021), and former State Deputy (2011–2015); pre-candidate who resigned the mayoralty on 4 April 2026 but had not formally confirmed his ticket as of that date.

Senate election

Two Senate seats are contested. The principal declared candidates include:

Chamber of Deputies election

Alagoas's nine seats in the federal Chamber of Deputies will be contested under open-list proportional representation. Outgoing Federal Deputy Arthur Lira has announced that his son Álvaro Lira will run for his seat.

Legislative Assembly election

All 27 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Alagoas will be contested.

External links

• Tribunal Regional Eleitoral de Alagoas