Presidential election in Poland: Two more weeks of fighting for everything

The "battle for everything" has begun, wrote Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk shortly after the first results of the exit polls for the presidential elections were announced. "We still have a lot of work ahead of us," said his candidate, Rafał Trzaskowski, at an election party in Sandomierz, southern Poland. The 53-year-old liberal and pro-European mayor of Warsaw is the hope of Tusk's government. The government has so far frequently been blocked in its legislative efforts by the PiS -affiliated President Andrzej Duda, who has now been barred from running again after two terms in office.

As expected, Trzaskowski received the most votes in the first round of voting. It was not expected that the candidate of the right-wing nationalist PiS party, Karol Nawrocki, would follow him so closely. This makes the runoff election on June 1 a very close race. Another surprise of the evening was the overall strong performance of right-wing extremist candidates.

Polling stations in Poland were open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sunday for approximately 29 million eligible voters. The official election results are not expected to be announced until later in the day on Monday. Shortly after midnight, new results from the Ipsos exit polls were released. According to them, Rafał Trzaskowski's result improved slightly compared to the initial forecasts of the evening, reaching 31.1 percent. The gap to second-placed Karol Nawrocki grew, with Nawrocki receiving 29.1 percent of the vote.

The 42-year-old historian Nawrocki is an independent candidate for the right-wing nationalist PiS party. Trzaskowski is a member of Prime Minister Donald Tusk's Civic Platform (PO). Voter turnout was very high at almost 67 percent, higher than in the first round of the presidential election in the summer of 2018. Trzaskowski had already run against Andrzej Duda back then. Trzaskowski's first-round result was somewhat worse; by the runoff, he had gained almost ten percentage points and ultimately narrowly lost to Duda.

Duda had received Romanian far-right presidential candidate George Simion at the presidential palace in Warsaw on Wednesday. Simion lost to the pro-European mayor of Bucharest, Nicușor Dan , in Romania's runoff election on Sunday evening.

Whether his liberal colleague Trzaskowski can also make it in Poland will also depend on the endorsements of the other candidates. Trzaskowski has already received one.

A total of 13 candidates ran. Besides Trzaskowski, two other candidates belong to parties in the governing coalition. Both the centrist Szymon Hołownia and the Left Party candidate, Magdalena Biejat, performed well below expectations, achieving only fifth and sixth place, respectively. Together, they received just nine percent of the vote. This likely weakens their parties within the government. Shortly after the forecasts were announced, Hołownia, however, called for Trzaskowski to be "given a chance." Biejat said she wanted to talk to Trzaskowski first.

But who can the PiS candidate mobilize? According to the results of the post-election polls published shortly after midnight, the far-right Sejm MP Sławomir Mentzen received 14.8 percent of the vote, placing him in third place. Mentzen wants to leave the EU and further tighten Poland's already strict abortion laws – making abortions impossible even after rape. Mentzen is followed in the polls by the right-wing extremist Grzegorz Braun with 6.3 percent. The polls had not predicted such a strong result.

Braun disrupted the day the Tusk government took office in the Sejm in December 2023 by attacking a newly lit Hanukkah menorah with a fire extinguisher. During the election campaign, he was filmed spraying black paint on an exhibition about the LGBT community in Opole's market square.

Last June, Braun was elected to the European Parliament. The European Parliament recently lifted his immunity. The 58-year-old can now be charged with, among other things, damaging the Hanukkah menorah. He also destroyed the Christmas tree of the Iustitia judges' association in a Krakow courthouse and damaged the sound system at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw.

Mentzen, a 38-year-old business economist who was voted for primarily by men and especially in the 19-39 age group, has not yet endorsed Nawrocki. Before the election, he had stated that he would not support Nawrocki. Mentzen's electorate is significantly younger and somewhat more urban than Nawrocki's. The PiS party, as polls once again show, is rightly considered a party of old people. Nawrocki received the most votes among those over 60, as well as in rural areas and the eastern voivodeships (administrative districts). Nawrocki also receives more votes from men.

Trzaskowski, on the other hand, who won in ten of the 16 voivodeships, has the most voters among 40- to 59-year-olds, statistically more women, especially people in cities – even smaller ones – and with higher levels of education. Now, however, Trzaskowski still needs to reach a large portion of the others.