Two polls released Monday shook the political establishment. Augusto Cury, of the small Avante party, took third place in both: 11% in Nexus's survey, 7.8% in Atlas Intel's.

The numbers force rivals and analysts to take Cury seriously for the first time since he entered the race. His rise followed two bursts of exposure: the Aug. 23 presidential debate, which Flávio Bolsonaro, Lula, and Romeu Zema all skipped, and last week's Jornal Nacional interview. His asset appears to be a rhetoric that refuses polarization, suggesting the third way's failure to gain traction has been a problem of supply rather than demand.

The Brazilian Report's editor-in-chief, Gustavo Ribeiro, and James Green, the Brown University historian who chairs the Brazil Office Alliance, discussed what Cury's rise means for the race on our latest joint podcast.