Trump-Backed Contender Wins in Poland Presidential Election

UPDATE Jun 2, 2025 12:30 AM CDT

Conservative Karol Nawrocki won Poland's weekend presidential runoff election, according to the final vote count on Monday. Nawrocki won 50.89% of votes in a very tight race against liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, who received 49.11%, the AP reports. The close race had the country on edge since a first round two weeks earlier and through the night into Monday, revealing deep divisions in the country along the eastern flank of NATO and the European Union. An early exit poll released Sunday evening suggested Trzaskowski was headed to victory before updated polling began to reverse the picture hours later. The outcome indicates that Poland can be expected to take a more nationalist path under its new leader, who was backed by US President Donald Trump.

Jun 1, 2025 4:38 PM CDT

An exit poll in Poland's presidential runoff on Sunday showed the race was too close to call, in an election that could set the course for the nation's political future and its relations with the European Union. In the meantime, both candidates said they expected to be declared the winner, the AP reports. An Ipsos exit poll released when the voting ended had liberal Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski with 50.3% of the vote and conservative historian Karol Nawrocki with 49.7%. The poll reports a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

"We won," Trzaskowski told his supporters at an election night event in Warsaw to chants of "Rafal, Rafal." He promised to be a president for all Poles, including those who did not vote for him. Nawrocki said he believed the vote count would turn in his favor. "We must win tonight," he said. The state electoral commission was expected to release the final vote count on Monday, though the result could be clear sooner. The runoff follows a tightly contested first round of voting on May 18, in which Trzaskowski won just over 31% and Nawrocki nearly 30%, eliminating 11 other candidates.

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Katarzyna Malek, a 29-year-old voter in Warsaw, cast her ballot in the first round for a left-wing candidate but went for Trzaskowski on Sunday, viewing him as more competent and more likely to pursue stronger ties with foreign partners and lower social tensions. "I hope there will be less division, that maybe there will be more dialogue," she said, per the AP. Wladyslawa Wasowska, an 82-year-old former history teacher who recalled instilling patriotism in her students during the Communist era, said that for her, Nawrocki is the patriotic choice. She said Trzaskowski is controlled by Germany, adding, "I want a sovereign, independent, democratic Poland—and a Catholic one."

(More Poland stories.)