(Bloomberg) -- Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won 50 percent of votes in a first ballot and may head to an Oct. 29 run-off against rival Geraldo Alckmin, exit polls show. Lula, 60, led Alckmin with 50 percent of votes, according to exit polls by Ibope, which has a 2 percentage points margin of error. Lula needs 50 percent plus one vote to win in the first round. Alckmin, 53, a former governor of Sao Paulo state, had 38 percent of the votes, according to the exit polls, released on Globo television. ``I still expect Lula to win the election relatively easy in the second round,'' Riordan Roett, a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University and chairman of its western hemisphere program, said in a phone interview from Baltimore. ``It's a short time between today's vote and the second round so president Lula will be able to hold on to his core support.''