Centrist Warsaw mayor narrowly wins Polish presidential vote — but runoff looms

WARSAW — Liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski narrowly won the first round of Poland’s presidential election on Sunday against his right-wing rival Karol Nawrocki, setting the two up for a nail-biting campaign for the second round on June 1.

Trzaskowski, part of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform party, won 31.36 percent of the vote while Nawrocki, supported by the populist right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, took 29.54 percent, with all votes counted.

Trzaskowski’s margin of victory was smaller than predicted in preelection surveys, giving Nawrocki momentum heading into the second round. POLITICO’s poll of polls predicted Trzaskowski at 31 percent and Nawrocki with 26 percent.

“I told you eight months ago it would be very close — and it is very close,” Trzaskowski told a rally held by his campaign on Sunday evening.

“This result shows how strong and determined we need to be to win the presidential election,” he added. “We’re on the final stretch. We will win!”

Nawrocki thanked his supporters for resisting “the pressure of propaganda, falsehoods, and lies, who did not give in to the power of Donald Tusk’s state institutions.”

The Warsaw mayor now faces immediate pressure to broaden his appeal to a wider electorate, said Bartosz Rydliński, a political scientist at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw.

“We’re going to see pretty much cacophonous signals to all possible voters of other candidates bar Nawrocki,” Rydliński said.

The battle between Trzaskowski and Nawrocki will be over who can attract voters who opted for one of the minor candidates in the first round. Trzaskowski will be fishing among the backers of centrist and left-wing candidates, while Nawrocki will be hoping to lure the supports of far-right Sławomir Mentzen, who came third with 14.8 percent.

“I want to address one of the candidates, Sławomir Mentzen. This is the time to save Poland. We both want a sovereign, strong, rich and secure Poland,” Nawrocki said in a speech after the polls closed.

Szymon Hołownia, the speaker of parliament, ran for the center-right Poland 2050 and took 4.99 percent of the vote, while Magdalena Biejat was the candidate of the Left, winning 4.23 percent. Both parties are in the Tusk-led ruling coalition. In the run-up to Sunday’s vote, the two avoided unleashing damaging attacks against Trzaskowski.

“Trzaskowski is now likely to send some conciliatory signals to candidates like Szymon Hołownia or Magdalena Biejat,” Rydliński said.

But in a warning for Trzaskowski, and a potential signal of broader dissatisfaction with Tusk’s government, Grzegorz Braun, a far-right antisemitic candidate best known for using a fire extinguisher to douse a Jewish menorah in the Polish parliament, placed a surprisingly strong fourth at 6.34 percent. Adrian Zandberg, with the far-left Together party that is not part of Tusk’s coalition, took 4.86 percent.

Taken together, the candidates who oppose Tusk did better than those from parties supporting the government, meaning Trzaskowski will have a steep slope to climb to win on June 1.

“The game for everything is just beginning. A hard fight for every vote. These two weeks will decide the future of our country. Therefore, not a step backward,” Tusk posted on X.

This article has been updated with a final vote count.