Right mobilizes Senate candidates for 2026 to challenge Supreme Court

Brazil's right-wing parties are building a deliberate strategy around the 2026 Senate elections, viewing the race not as a secondary contest but as the central battleground for constraining the Supreme Court. The calculus is straightforward: if they can secure 41 senators committed to challenging judicial overreach, they can begin moving forward on impeachment proceedings against justices they accuse of abusing their authority. Currently, roughly 70 impeachment requests sit dormant on the Senate president's desk, most targeting Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who faces allegations of illegal detention, unconstitutional investigations, and censorship of political opponents and social media users, particularly those aligned with the conservative right.

The urgency has intensified following a December ruling by Justice Gilmar Mendes that made impeachment far more difficult to achieve. If confirmed by the full court, the decision would require 54 senators—not 41—to approve an impeachment referral. This makes 2026 even more strategically critical. That election year will see 54 Senate seats up for renewal, double the 27 that turned over in 2022. The math is brutal and clear: the right needs to win decisively and consolidate its candidates around a shared agenda of Supreme Court accountability.

Former federal deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro crystallized the strategic thinking in a recent radio interview, declaring that the Senate race matters more than the presidential contest. "The Senate is capable of stopping judicial tyrants," he said. "The president cannot. We're watching Lula have to ask permission from the Supreme Court for everything he does." This framing—the Senate as the real power center, the place where judicial overreach can actually be checked—has become the organizing principle for right-wing recruitment and candidate positioning across multiple states.

The Bolsonaro family itself is being evaluated for various electoral scenarios. With former president Jair Bolsonaro likely to remain ineligible for office, his wife Michelle, sons Eduardo and Carlos, and son Flávio are all being considered for Senate runs, though some may anchor a presidential ticket instead. Michelle, currently president of the Liberal Party's women's wing, has spent the past two years traveling across states organizing regional meetings and recruiting conservative women. She has publicly criticized Justice Moraes's conduct, calling him "the chosen executioner" acting "irresponsibly and draconian." Yet she has largely avoided confirming her own electoral ambitions, and in early December she stepped back from party activities to address health concerns.

Eduardo Bolsonaro presents a more complicated picture. He has expressed interest in the presidency but the Liberal Party prefers he run for Senate or seek reelection to the Chamber of Deputies. His situation has become unstable since March 2025, when he moved to the United States to coordinate with American officials against the Brazilian Supreme Court. The move triggered an investigation at the Court itself, and Eduardo has said he cannot return to Brazil without risking arrest. Technically, he could run for Senate from abroad, but taking office would require his physical return—a prospect that remains uncertain.

Carlos Bolsonaro, currently serving his seventh consecutive term as a Rio de Janeiro city councilman, has been positioned by his father to run for Senate from Santa Catarina, a move designed to avoid cannibalizing votes from other party candidates in Rio. The strategy has generated fierce internal conflict, as Santa Catarina already boasts strong right-wing contenders including federal deputies Caroline De Toni and Julia Zanatta, both from the Liberal Party, and Senator Esperidião Amin from the Progressive Party, who is term-limited and seeking reelection.

Beyond the Bolsonaro orbit, the right has assembled a roster of candidates with explicit anti-Supreme Court platforms. Bia Kicis, a federal deputy from Brasília who chaired the Constitutional and Justice Committee and served as government whip under Bolsonaro, launched her Senate campaign in November, calling the current Court composition a "judicial farce." Ricardo Salles, Bolsonaro's former environment minister and one of the country's most-voted deputies in 2022, is weighing a Senate run from São Paulo, though he is also considering a gubernatorial bid if Governor Tarcísio de Freitas enters the presidential race. Marcel Van Hattem, a Novo party deputy from Rio Grande do Sul and one of the most vocal critics of judicial activism, topped polling in his state in November and has already been nominated by his party for the Senate.

The strategy faces real obstacles. Internal competition within right-wing parties threatens to fracture the unified front. In several states, multiple candidates from the same party are competing for limited slots, creating the risk that conservative votes will split. In Pernambuco, former Tourism Minister Gilson Machado, backed directly by Bolsonaro, faces resistance from within the Liberal Party and has threatened to switch parties to viability his candidacy. In Paraná, former Lava Jato task force leader Deltan Dallagnol, whose federal mandate was annulled in 2023, is positioned as a strong Senate contender, but he competes with other right-wing names. And in Minas Gerais, Nikolas Ferreira, the most-voted federal deputy in Brazil in 2022 and a prominent Bolsonaro ally, will likely be unable to run for Senate because he will not yet be 35 years old—the constitutional minimum—by the time candidacies are officially registered in August 2026.

The broader picture is one of calculated ambition meeting practical constraint. The right has identified the Senate as the lever for checking judicial power, assembled a bench of candidates with credible anti-Court platforms, and is executing a state-by-state recruitment strategy. But the same decentralized party system that gives them multiple entry points also creates internal friction. Whether they can consolidate enough votes to reach 41 or 54 senators—depending on how the courts ultimately rule—remains an open question. What is certain is that 2026 will be fought not primarily over the presidency, but over who controls the Senate and whether it will finally act on those 70 pending impeachment requests.