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Q: With less than a week to go before the first round of Brazil's presidential election on Sunday, the contest to decide who will lead the South American country remains in a dead heat. The latest polls show only a few percentage points difference in support between incumbent Dilma Rousseff and challenger Marina Silva. What must each candidate do to swing the vote in her direction? Which issues are resonating most with voters?

A: Peter Hakim, member of the Advisor board and president emeritus of the Inter-American Dialogue: "The Brazilian presidential race is too close to call. Within weeks of replacing Eduardo Campos as the PSB's candidate in August, Marina Silva overtook President Dilma Rousseff as the frontrunner in most polls. Despite her obvious charisma and appeal as an outsider, Marina's numbers have slipped in recent weeks. She is now running slightly behind Dilma. Third-ranked candidate Aécio Neves is also benefitting from Marina's slippage, but it appears almost certain that Dilma and Marina will finish one-two on election day, Oct. 5, and proceed to an impossible-to-predict runoff on Oct. 26. The bottom of Brazil's income ladder will go solidly for Dilma. Her Workers' Party (PT) has long been their party, and Brazil's most popular political leader ever, Lula da Silva, will be actively campaigning for his protégé. Although Brazil's stumbling economy and political unrest have cut Dilma's support, the country's poor have benefitted greatly from PT policies and programs in the past dozen years--and most will stick with Lula and the party. Polls suggest that Aécio's support, largely from Brazil's upper income strata, will mainly shift to Marina in the second round. Prominent Aécio supporters, like former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, are already singing Marina's praises. The election, however, will be decided by middle-income groups, who are now a majority of Brazil's voters. Today, they are evenly divided between Dilma and Marina. They want change--better government, higher quality services, a growing economy and more robust wages. But the middle sectors know about booms and busts, and they also want to protect what they already have. Marina is the voice of change, but she is untested. Dilma is the less-risky, better known face of continuity. Hard to foretell which the Brazilians will choose. Even harder to know how much difference it will make."

A: Melvyn Levitsky, professor of international policy and practice at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and former U.S. ambassador to Brazil: "No candidate will receive the 50 percent necessary to win the election in the first round. It seems certain that the runoff on Oct. 26 will pit Marina Silva against the incumbent, Dilma Rousseff. They both appeal to the same general constituency. The only other viable candidate is Aécio Neves who many thought would be Dilma's closest challenger before Marina entered the race after the tragic death of Eduardo Campos. In Marina's favor is her compelling life story, the sense that she has emerged from the people and understands their needs, an atmosphere of dissatisfaction based on such issues as bus prices, waste and corruption, especially surrounding the lavish spending on stadiums for the World Cup, a flagging economy and a desire for something or someone new. Dilma's advantage is quite simple--leverage, largesse and Lula. The fact is that a sitting Brazilian president has the ability to fund projects that bring (or buy) support and votes. Some of this has already been done, and we can expect more in the next month. A key question is, now that Aécio seems to have little chance of making the second round, how will that vote be split? The conventional wisdom is that this centrist vote will move more toward Marina. In the past week, however, the polls show that Dilma seems to have recovered some of the support she had lost in the initial rush of enthusiasm about Marina. Marina has published her program, but there are still questions about what she would do and what kind of people she would appoint to important positions. She may be forced to be more specific if her numbers continue to diminish. Dilma needs to be steady, act presidential, try to get Lula out front more with his support and keep expectations high that voters would be taking an unnecessary chance with Marina who has thus far not run or managed anything but the Ministry of Environment. Many things could change before election day, but at this point I would give the edge to Dilma."

A: Riordan Roett, director of the Latin American Studies program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies: "The Brazilian presidential race is President Dilma Rousseff's to lose, and she appears to be very close to that outcome as the campaign comes to an end. In July, Dilma appeared to be a 'done deal.' Her opponents, including Aécio Neves of the Social Democratic Party, could not gain traction. Governor Eduardo Campos of Pernambuco was an attractive new face in national politics, but unknown nationally. His sudden death in a plane crash changed the dynamic of the election. The Socialist Party picked Campos' vice-presidential candidate, Marina Silva, as his replacement. Suddenly, Dilma's poll numbers stagnated and Marina steadily climbed to ultimately rival the president. Neves remained in third place. The selection of Marina was brilliant. The daughter of rubber tappers in the Amazon, she did not learn to read and write until she was 16. Highly motivated, she earned an education that led to her election as a federal senator and, after the election of former President Lula, she joined the cabinet as minister for the environment. Marina has campaigned on a platform of 'new politics.' She appeals to those Brazilians who want responsible change in Brasília. Dilma and the Workers' Party (PT) suffer from very poor economic growth, increasing inflation, corruption and a perception that her re-election would bring little policy change in addressing inadequate public health facilities and failing public schools. On the attack as the race ends, Dilma tried smearing Marina, accusing her of wanting to end Bolsa Família, the conditional cash transfer program; Marina shot back vehemently, referring to her own impoverished background. Dilma has retreated. If there is a second round of voting, what the Neves supporters will do is critical; they could make the difference in a Marina victory."