Workers' Party (Brazil) in the context of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

A running mate is a person running together with another person on a joint ticket during an election. The term is most often used in reference to the person in the subordinate position (such as the vice presidential candidate running with a presidential candidate) but can also properly be used when referring to both candidates.

Running mates may be chosen, by custom or by law, to balance the ticket geographically, ideologically, or personally; examples of such a custom for each of the criteria are, geographically, in Nigerian general elections, in which a presidential candidate from the predominantly Christian south is typically matched with a vice presidential candidate from the predominantly Muslim north, and vice versa, ideologically, the Brazilian general elections in 2010 and 2014, where Dilma Rousseff of the left-wing Workers' Party ran alongside Michel Temer of the center-right Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, and, personally, the 2016 Bulgarian presidential election, in which both candidates who went on to the second round of voting, Rumen Radev and Tsetska Tsacheva, had running mates of the opposite gender. The objective is to create a more widespread appeal for the ticket and the results can range from assisting the resulting pair of candidates in appealing to a larger base of people to deterring voters who were initially inclined to vote for the running candidate, but may have been put off by the choice of the running mate.

The Liberal Party (Portuguese: Partido Liberal, PL) is a right-wing political party in Brazil. From its foundation in 2006 until 2019, it was called the Party of the Republic (Portuguese: Partido da República, PR).

The party was founded in 2006 as a merger of the 1985 Liberal Party and the Party of the Reconstruction of the National Order (PRONA), as a big tent, centre-right party, and was considered part of the Centrão, a bloc of parties without consistent ideological orientation that support different sides of the political spectrum in order to gain political privileges. As such, it supported the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff— members of the center-left Workers' Party—and Michel Temer.

General elections were held in Brazil on 7 October 2018 to elect the president, National Congress and state governors. As no candidate in the presidential election (and for the gubernatorial election in some states) received more than 50% of the vote in the first round, a runoff round was held of those offices on 28 October. On that day, right-wing outsider candidate Jair Bolsonaro defeated leftist Fernando Haddad and was elected President of Brazil.

The election occurred during a tumultuous time in Brazilian politics. Narrowly re-elected in 2014, President Dilma Rousseff of the centre-left Workers' Party (PT), which had dominated Brazilian politics since 2002, was impeached in 2016. Replacing her was her Vice President, Michel Temer of the centre-right Brazilian Democratic Movement Party. Temer, whose age of 75 at inauguration made him the oldest to ever take office, broke sharply with his predecessor's policies and amended the constitution to freeze public spending. He was extraordinarily unpopular, reaching an approval rating of 7% versus 76% in favor of his resignation. Despite mass demonstrations against his governance, including a 2017 general strike and a 2018 truck drivers' strike, Temer refused to step down and served the duration of his term in office. Due to being convicted of breaking campaign finance laws, Temer was ineligible to run in 2018.

General elections were held in Brazil on 6 October 2002, with a second round of the presidential election on 27 October. The elections were held in the midst of an economic crisis that began in the second term of the incumbent president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso of the centre-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB). Due to constitutional term limits, Cardoso was ineligible to run for a third consecutive term.

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers' Party (PT), a former labor leader and federal deputy for São Paulo, ran for president for a fourth time. Lula had previously lost in the 1989, 1994, and 1998 presidential elections, being defeated by Cardoso in the latter two. Lula somewhat moderated his political approach in the 2002 presidential campaign, writing a document now known as the Letter to the Brazilian People to ease fears that he would transition Brazil into a full-fledged socialist economy. Staying true to this turn to the center, Lula chose José Alencar, a millionaire textile businessman and Senator from Minas Gerais associated with the centre-right Liberal Party (PL), as his running mate.