> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://from-my-arena.ghost.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # From My Arena #20: Brazil decides today. Tomorrow, a special edition. - URL: https://from-my-arena.ghost.io/from-my-arena-20-brazil-decides-today-tomorrow-a-special-edition/ - Published: 2026-10-25T17:15:53.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-25T17:15:53.000Z - Description: Brazil votes, Machado is back in Venezuela, the Hispanic vote is a pendulum, election night on Telemundo, breakfast with Uribe, and the news I've been keeping quiet. - Author: Cesar Grajales Friends, Brazil is voting as you read this. Tomorrow morning you'll get a special edition with the result and what it means for the United States. Today, five things I want you to know before the numbers come in, plus one piece of breaking news out of Venezuela. New here? Read on, there's a proper welcome at the end. --- **BRAZIL VOTES TODAY** Let's start with the facts. Flávio Bolsonaro beat Lula in the first round, 47 to 45\. That's 2.2 million more votes. Every final poll this weekend shows a statistical tie, 51 to 49 in his favor. Betting markets give him about an 80 percent chance. And here's the number nobody in the Lula camp wants to hear: since Brazil returned to democracy in 1985, no candidate who finished second in the first round has ever won the runoff. Not once. Does that mean it's over? No. Lula got his momentum back. Big street rallies, a very aggressive digital campaign, and a final debate Friday night where both men finally showed up. Lula called it a low-level debate. Let's not forget, the polls missed Flávio's first-round win completely. They could miss again, in either direction. About 160 million Brazilians are registered. Thirty-three million stayed home in round one. Who shows up today decides this. Polls close at 4 p.m. Miami time, voting is fully electronic, and we'll know the winner tonight. One thing I will say now, whatever happens. Flávio is the candidate most aligned with individual freedom and with Washington's security agenda for the hemisphere. The left calls that "Trump's candidate." I call it a Brazilian deciding what Brazil needs. **Why it matters to America** The largest economy in Latin America is choosing tonight between a partner for the Shield of the Americas and the bloc that calls that partnership "imperialism." China is watching. The cartels are watching. Tomorrow morning I'll tell you who won and what it means for the U.S.–Brazil relationship. Special edition, first thing. --- **BREAKING: MACHADO IS BACK IN VENEZUELA** By the way, this just happened. María Corina Machado is back on Venezuelan soil. She announced it herself this morning with four words: "I'm here. With you." She left in December to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo and had been trying to get back in for months. At least seven attempts failed. Today she made it. This is a developing story and I'll be analyzing it over the coming days. I'll only say this now: it changes the board. **Why it matters to America** Washington's Venezuela policy was built with her outside the country. Now she's inside. Stay tuned. --- **NINE DAYS: THE HISPANIC VOTE, WITHOUT SUGARCOATING** I spent this week on Univision, Telemundo, CNN en Español, and NTN24 making one point. It doesn’t matter how a Hispanic voter is registered. This cycle proves it once and for all: the Hispanic vote is a pendulum. It swings. It swung hard toward Trump in 2024\. It’s swinging back now. And it will swing again. Anyone who tells you they’ve locked it in is selling something. The numbers as of this weekend. NBC/Telemundo has Hispanic voters preferring a Democratic Congress 59 to 35\. Pew has it 51 to 24\. Two years ago Trump won Hispanic men by 10 points. That’s gone. But here’s the number nobody on cable is reading to you. Pew asked the Hispanics who actually voted for Trump in 2024 where they stand today. Sixty-five percent say they’ll vote Republican for Congress. Only 11 percent have crossed over. The rest are undecided, not lost. And among those same Trump voters, only three in ten think the administration is doing too much on deportations. The majority says it’s about right, or not enough. The base held. What moved is the voter in the middle. So why is the middle moving? Let’s be precise, because the other side isn’t. It’s the economy first. Pew has it as the top issue for 86 percent of Hispanic voters. Health care, education, and the future of democracy come next. Immigration is fifth. Hispanics voted for border security and for deporting criminals, and they still support that. What they did not vote for is grocery prices going up. And what they did not vote for is watching the woman who’s sold tacos on the same corner for twenty years, who never hurt anyone and pays into this economy every single day, get taken away because she never had a legal path to fix her papers. That’s not every Hispanic voter’s reason. But it’s the one that turns a Republican into an undecided. Here’s the part the mainstream never leads with. In the NBC poll, socialism is underwater with Hispanics: 13 percent positive, 41 percent negative. And yet look at who’s been winning Democratic primaries this cycle: candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, in Florida and Wisconsin to name two. That’s the bet the other side is making, and I think it’s a mistake. In October they run from the label. In their heart and in their head, that’s exactly what they’re running on. Hispanics who fled socialism know the difference. That’s how the pendulum comes back. Two more things before you panic. One: Wedgewood Polls admitted Tuesday that it fabricated most of its surveys, and they skewed Democratic. The New York Times, Nate Silver, and FiftyPlusOne threw them all out. Read every poll this week with that in mind. Two: more than 24 million Americans have already voted, up from about 15 million at this point in 2022\. In states that report party, Democrats lead the early vote, but a quarter of those ballots are independents. In Florida, 2.6 million ballots are in and the two parties are nearly even. This is a turnout election, and Republicans vote late. So here’s my read, and it’s not the one you’re hearing on cable. Things are not as bad for conservatives as many are predicting. A normal midterm, not a blue wave. But I’d be lying if I told you this is nothing. It’s a yellow flag. A warning about 2028\. The Democratic Socialists of America and the rest of the radical wing are going to join forces for 2028 in a way we haven’t seen yet. Count on it. And one more date to put on your radar. This week I was in a private meeting with Speaker Mike Johnson in Broward County. He said something that stuck with me: 2030 matters as much as 2028, and almost nobody is talking about it. The 2030 census redraws every congressional map in the country for a decade. Who governs the states when that happens decides who holds the House in the 2030s. We’re so focused on the next election that we’re losing sight of the one that shapes the next ten. **Why it matters to America** Whoever reads the pendulum right this year governs with it in 2028\. Whoever reads it wrong will spend four years explaining why. I’ll go deeper as the final stretch unfolds this week, and on November 3 I’ll be on the air doing it live. --- **ELECTION NIGHT ON TELEMUNDO** One more thing, and I'll keep it short. On November 3, Telemundo, the national network, has brought me on to do the live analysis on election night as the results come in, coast to coast, in Spanish. Think about what that means for this project. Millions of Hispanic households watching the midterms in Spanish, and the analysis they hear is a conservative one. That's exactly what Red Latina Network exists to do. We just got a bigger stage to do it on. **Why it matters to America** Spanish-language television shapes how Hispanic America understands this country. For one night, the voice explaining the results to them will be one you've been reading every Sunday. --- **BREAKFAST WITH URIBE** This week I had breakfast with former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe Vélez. We talked about all of Latin America, but one thing stayed with me. Someone at the table asked him about the 2016 peace plebiscite. Uribe led the "No" campaign against the deal with the FARC. The "No" won. And then President Juan Manuel Santos went ahead with the agreement anyway. So the question was fair: why weren't you more aggressive? You had the votes. You had the country. His answer: "I went as far as the Constitution allowed." Think about that. A man who had the people behind him, who many consider the best president in Latin America's modern history, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in this country. He could have pushed. He didn't. Because the Constitution said stop. I think our leaders need to hear that today, in every country, including this one. The Constitution is the foundation. You don't bend it when it's convenient, and you don't skip it when you're winning. Ignoring it, violating it, going around it, that's how chaos starts. Every time. Having him as a friend is a privilege. Hearing that from him was a lesson. **Why it matters to America** We live in a moment when, on either side of the aisle, it sometimes looks like someone is tempted to jump over the Constitution, or to forget how much it matters. That’s when the words of a true leader are worth repeating: you go as far as the Constitution allows, and then you stop. --- **ISRAEL, IN THREE WEEKS** Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through its Consulate General in Miami, invited me to join the Future Leaders Delegation to Israel, the second week of November. Two hundred and fifty emerging American leaders from all 50 states, none of us has been there before. Six days on Israel's society, democracy, economy, security, and its partnerships with the United States. Why does this matter to a Spanish-language analyst? Because the fight Israel is in is the same fight we cover every week on this newsletter: Western civilization against those who want it gone. Israel is the front line. We are the second line. And look at what's happening in my country of origin. On October 14, Colombia opened its embassy in Jerusalem, the tenth country in the world to do it. Two years ago the previous government had cut ties with Israel completely. Now an American born in Colombia travels to Israel the same month Colombia came back to Jerusalem. That's not a coincidence. That's a region correcting course. **Why it matters to America** Every Latin American country that moves toward Israel is moving toward the West, and toward the United States. The other side understands this perfectly. That's why they fight it so hard. --- **CAUTIVO (**CAPTIVE**): SOMETHING I'VE BEEN KEEPING QUIET** Now I can say it. "Cautivo," the first documentary produced by Red Latina Network Foundation, has been selected by the Miami Jewish Film Festival. The 30th edition, January 13 to 28, 2027\. It's the largest Jewish film festival in the world. Last year it drew more than 58,500 filmgoers. We already have our theater: O Cinema in Miami Beach. I've held this publicly for weeks. The festival's advertising starts soon. But you, the people on this list, heard it first. Our first documentary. Selected by the most important Jewish film festival on the planet. I'm proud. And I'm grateful, because some of you made it possible. **Why it matters to America** Culture is where the left has owned the conversation for decades. A conservative, Spanish-language movement putting a documentary on that stage is not a side project. It's part of the mission. --- **FROM THE ARENA THIS WEEK** **Línea de Fuego (Univision):** France is burning again, and I explained why. From Robespierre to today, France has romanticized street violence for two centuries, and the far left knows how to hijack a student protest. [Watch the clip](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Det%5F06tRvdk/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fweb%5Fcopy%5Flink&cplk=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==&srtk=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) **La Saga (Mexico):** Free stuff from politicians always ends the same way. Chile, France, Portugal, Spain: radical-left governments promised to give it all away, and every one of them ended in crisis. My line that night: the only person who can fix your life is you. [Watch the clip](https://www.instagram.com/reel/De2olCRAfJn/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fweb%5Fcopy%5Flink&psln=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==&srtk=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) **CNN en Español, Choque de Opiniones:** What if things aren’t as bad for Republicans as everyone thinks? That was my case in the debate on the final stretch to the midterms. [Watch the clip](https://www.instagram.com/reel/De5SqCyx4FG/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fweb%5Fcopy%5Flink&mdxt=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==&srtk=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==) --- **NEW HERE? WELCOME** If this is your first edition, welcome. "From My Arena" is Red Latina Network Foundation's English-language newsletter: a weekly window for English-speaking supporters into the battle we fight every week in Spanish-language media. Red Latina Network is a movement we're still building, bringing Spanish-speaking voices who explain complex things simply, in a space the other side has owned for too long. I take a side, and it's always the side of freedom. To those who have been here since edition #1: thank you. You know what this is about. --- **ONE FINAL REQUEST** Forward this to one person who should be reading it. **Now it's your turn:** What are you watching in the Americas right now? Hit reply, I read every response. Until tomorrow, Cesar Grajales President & Founder | Red Latina Network Foundation +1 (786) 260-9283 Follow Red Latina Network: Instagram | YouTube | Facebook | X | TikTok Personal: X @CesarGrajales4 | IG @Mrgrajales | TikTok @Mrgrajales Red Latina Network Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law