The stage is set for the second round of voting in Brazil’s presidential election. On October 7, a sprawling field of candidates was reduced to two, the extreme right-wing congressman Jair Bolsonaro, who ended with close to fifty percent of the vote, and the moderate progressive Fernando Haddad, who ended with about thirty percent. On October 28, Brazilians will go to the polls to elect one of these men. Considering how close Bolsonaro came to winning outright—which a simple majority of votes in the first round would have accomplished—he is the clear favorite to be Brazil’s next president.

Bolsonaro, a retired army captain who has consistently praised the military regime that ruled the country between 1964 and 1985, suggesting he wants to resume its authoritarian project of social control and economic modernization, would have won outright were it not for enduring support in the northeast for Haddad’s Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, or PT). In the closing week of the campaign, Bolsonaro looked to be chipping away at the PT’s hold in the relatively impoverished Northeast, forcing Haddad to change his plans for the end of the first round. Instead of a final push in a union stronghold on the outskirts of São Paulo, he finished off the campaign in Bahia, the largest state of northeastern Brazil. The move was reminiscent of Clinton and Obama desperately rushing to seemingly-safe Michigan as the curtains drew on the 2016 campaign, a sign that the PT might have trouble shoring up even its most solid bases of support. Momentum seemed on Bolsonaro’s side as the final numbers of the first round came in.

The two sides now have strikingly different tasks ahead. To win, Bolsonaro needs only to hang on to his initial supporters and convert a handful of voters who opted for more moderate conservative candidates in the first round. Bolsonaro has almost certainly not hit his limit: Many voters will now hold their noses against his many offensively racist, sexist, and homophobic utterances and choose him over Haddad, the standard-bearer for a party many voters see as hopelessly corrupt. Haddad will also grow as he inherits the vast majority of votes cast for Ciro Gomes, another center-left figure in the race who tried unsuccessfully to present himself as an experienced progressive leader untainted by the PT’s scandals. Haddad needs to stall Bolsonaro’s momentum immediately to keep the race even. It’s not clear what it would take for that to happen.

Many of Bolsonaro supporters, like supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump, have dismissed their candidate’s most inflammatory proclamations as unserious, loose talk. Yet there is reason for concern that Bolsonaro’s rhetorical violence will not stop at the level of discourse. For one thing, many of Bolsonaro’s allies rode to victory in the first round of voting. His son was elected to the lower house of Congress with the most votes of any candidate for that position in Brazilian history. Bolsonaro’s party, the Social Liberal Party (Partido Social Liberal, or PSL), which four years ago was a non-entity in Congress with only one member, elected fifty-one representatives, becoming the second largest partisan bloc in Congress literally overnight, second only to the PT. Bolsonaro will thus have eager foot soldiers in the legislature. Congress as a whole may curb some of Bolsonaro’s most radical impulses, but it is certain to let more than a few measures through.

Clearly, there is latent hostility in many quarters of Brazilian society to women and minorities.

Clearly, there is latent hostility in many quarters of Brazilian society to women and minorities. Even if only 10 percent of what Bolsonaro has promised comes to pass, it will have a devastating impact on the meager advances of recent decades and will likely have a cascading effect on citizens’ everyday lives. Recently, for example, cell phone footage emerged of Bolsonaro supporters verbally harassing a gay couple at a metro station in São Paulo. They warned the couple to be careful—that Bolsonaro was going to “kill queers.” Bolsonaro’s verbal attacks against public institutions and the very idea of human rights are a palpable threat to marginalized groups in Brazilian society.