Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has declared three days of mourning for opposition party presidential candidate Eduardo Campos who was killed in a plane crash on Wednesday.  The tragedy throws a new variable in the Presidential Elections, scheduled for October.

Campos was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Guaruja airport near Sao Paulo, where bad weather was reported around the airport.  Air traffic controllers say they lost contact with the plane after it was unable to land in its first attempt.  The Cessna 560XL plunged into several houses, bursting into flames.  All seven people on the plane were killed.

49-year old Eduardo Campos was running third in opinion polls, but had made a well-received TV appearance the night before and some pundits thought it might boost his popularity.  Campos was running as a pro-business Socialist.  But his running mate might prove to be a headache for the incumbent President Dilma Rousseff, who still tops the polls. 

Marina Silva would more than likely run to the left of where Campos was, potentially siphoning votes from Rousseff and her Workers’ Party base.  Silva likely wouldn’t win, but she could possibly keep Dilma from getting more than 50 percent, forcing a run-off between Rousseff and her traditional opponent, the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB).  Polls show Rousseff might have trouble in a run-off, because of dissatisfaction over the bad economy and spending on the World Cup and Olympics instead of on infrastructure, health care, and education.