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Right-wing candidate Karol Nawrocki wins after close race, official results show
The populist-right opposition candidate Karol Nawrocki, backed by the Law and Justice party (PiS), has won Poland’s presidential election, defeating his pro-European rival Rafał Trzaskowski, in a nail-bitingly close contest.
Official results showed Nawrocki took 50.89% of votes in the runoff, with Trzaskowski on 49.11%.
Nawrocki’s victory is a major blow for the coalition government led by Donald Tusk and is expected to prolong the current political deadlock in the country as well as complicate the country’s position in Europe.
The results comes after a dramatic turnaround given the first exit poll published just as the polls closed had suggested a narrow win for Trzaskowski by 0.6pp, prompting him to declare victory.
Nawrocki did not concede, saying he remained confident he would win when all the votes were counted. “We will win and save Poland,” he said. “We must win tonight.”
During a bitterly fought and often bad-tempered campaign in recent weeks, the two men have offered very different visions of Poland, and the result of the race will have enormous implications for the country’s political future, given the president’s ability to veto government legislation.
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US President Donald Trump made it clear he wanted Nawrocki as Poland’s president and in the last few days he also got public backing from Kristi Noem, the US secretary of homeland security.
Last month, the White House released photographs of Nawrocki meeting Trump in the Oval Office – a tacit but unmistakable show of support.
The conservative group CPAC held its first meeting in Poland last week to give Nawrocki a boost, AP reported. Noem urged Poles to vote for him. Speaking to the conference, she said:
I just had the opportunity to meet with Karol, and listen, he needs to be the next president of Poland. Do you understand me?
The US has about 10,000 troops stationed in Poland and Noem suggested that military ties could deepen with Nawrocki as president.
A common refrain from Nawrocki’s supporters is that he will restore “normality,” as they believe Trump has done. US flags often appeared at Nawrocki’s rallies, and his supporters believed that he offered a better chance for good ties with the Trump administration.
What does a Nawrocki victory mean for Poland's foreign policy?
Jon Henley
Ahead of the election, our Europe correspondent Jon Henley spoke to experts about what a Nawrocki win would mean for the country’s foreign policy. Here’s a snippet of what he wrote:
While in theory Polish presidents have limited influence over foreign policy, a win for Nawrocki, backed by PiS, would inevitably – and, eventually, significantly – constrain Poland’s European ambitions, analysts say.
“We’re not so much talking direct policy consequences,” said Piotr Buras of the European Council on Foreign Relations thinktank. “But if Trzaskowski, Tusk’s candidate, loses, the message is that Poles reject him and his government.”
Deprived of that legitimacy, Tusk “will struggle to play the big role in the EU he has started to play”, Buras said. “His government will be weaker, its room for manoeuvre will shrink. It’s about Poland’s capacity to play a strong role on the EU stage.”
Tusk’s electoral victory two years ago marked the beginning of Poland’s return to the European fold after two fractious terms of populist national-conservative rule during which Warsaw clashed repeatedly with Brussels over rule of law concerns.
PiS also regularly picked unnecessary fights with Germany, and in many EU debates sided with the illiberal Hungarian government of the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, the bloc’s disrupter-in-chief, further alienating Poland from the European mainstream.
The return of Tusk, elected on a promise to undo most of the PiS-era reforms, led to a sea change in relations, with the EU rapidly unblocking more than €100bn of funds it had frozen in retaliation for Poland’s backsliding on democratic norms.
Bolstered by a thriving economy, rising prosperity and its strategic importance in the resistance to Russia’s war on Ukraine, Warsaw has transformed itself in two short years into one of the EU’s most influential capitals, best buddies with Berlin and Paris.
But its full return to the EU fold can be complete only if Tusk can deliver on those key reforms – in particular, rolling back PiS’s politicisation of the court system – that have so far been blocked by the outgoing PiS-aligned president, Andrzej Duda.
President Andrzej Duda, a conservative like Nawrocki, has thanked voters for taking part in the election and congratulated his successor. In a post on X, he wrote:
THANK YOU! For participating in the presidential elections. For the turnout. For fulfilling your civic duty. For taking responsibility for Poland. Congratulations to the Winner! Stay strong, POLAND!
Who is Karol Nawrocki?
Nationalist historian Karol Nawrocki is a former amateur boxer with a particular interest in the criminal underworld. Here’s more from AFP:
The 42-year-old Nawrocki has been endorsed by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which governed Poland from 2015 to 2023.
The party is closely allied with outgoing President Andrzej Duda - who has publicly backed Nawrocki – and is a long-standing rival of the ruling Civic Coalition.
Nawrocki campaigned under the slogan “Poland first, Poles first”.
While he has pledged to continue Poland’s support for neighbouring Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, he has denounced the benefits given to war refugees.
He said in a campaign video in April that “social benefits will be above all for Poles” and that “in queues for doctors and clinics, Polish citizens must have priority”.
In May, he claimed Ukraine “has not shown gratitude for what Poles have done” and accused President Volodymyr Zelensky of “insolence”.
He opposes Ukraine’s bid to join Nato and is also an admirer of Donald Trump and has said Poland should focus on shaping and leading Europe’s relations with the US president.
He served as the director of the World War II museum in Gdansk from 2017 to 2021. Since then, he has led the Institute of National Remembrance, which investigates Nazi and communist-era crimes.
What does Nawrocki's win mean for domestic politics?
Jakub Krupa
While the role of the Polish president is largely ceremonial, it carries some influence over foreign and defence policy and a critical power to veto new legislation. This can only be overturned with a 60% majority in parliament, which the current government, led by Donald Tusk, does not have.
At stake is whether Tusk’s government will be able to make progress on its electoral promises on the rule of law and social issues, including abortion and LGBTQ rights, after 18 months of difficult cohabitation with the opposition president, Andrzej Duda.
Nawrocki’s win is expected to prolong the deadlock, making it difficult if not impossible for the government to pass any big reforms before the 2027 parliamentary election.
“Tusk knows the stakes and that if Nawrocki wins, he’s got a lame-duck administration for the next couple of years. And it will be worse than with Duda as Nawrocki will come in fresh, with a new mandate from what effectively turned into a referendum on the government,” Prof Aleks Szczerbiak, who teaches east and central European politics at the University of Sussex, said prior to the election.
Right-wing candidate Karol Nawrocki wins after close race, official results show
The populist-right opposition candidate Karol Nawrocki, backed by the Law and Justice party (PiS), has won Poland’s presidential election, defeating his pro-European rival Rafał Trzaskowski, in a nail-bitingly close contest.
Official results showed Nawrocki took 50.89% of votes in the runoff, with Trzaskowski on 49.11%.
Nawrocki’s victory is a major blow for the coalition government led by Donald Tusk and is expected to prolong the current political deadlock in the country as well as complicate the country’s position in Europe.
The results comes after a dramatic turnaround given the first exit poll published just as the polls closed had suggested a narrow win for Trzaskowski by 0.6pp, prompting him to declare victory.
Nawrocki did not concede, saying he remained confident he would win when all the votes were counted. “We will win and save Poland,” he said. “We must win tonight.”
During a bitterly fought and often bad-tempered campaign in recent weeks, the two men have offered very different visions of Poland, and the result of the race will have enormous implications for the country’s political future, given the president’s ability to veto government legislation.
