POLITICO
Nationalist Nawrocki wins Polish presidential election
Populist Karol Nawrocki, backed by the Law and Justice party and U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, beat liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski by 50.89 percent to 49.11 percent.
Poland holds presidential election
A triumphant Karol Nawrocki acknowledges supporters with his wife Marta Nawrocka and sons Daniel and Antoni in Warsaw. | Leszek Szymanski/EPA-EFE
June 1, 2025 9:01 pm CET
By Wojciech Kość
WARSAW — Right-wing candidate Karol Nawrocki narrowly beat centrist Rafał Trzaskowski in Poland’s presidential election runoff, winning 50.89 percent of the vote to 49.11 percent, according to the electoral commission.
The result was a dramatic shift from an initial exit poll released immediately after voting ended at 9 p.m. In that survey, which had a 2 percentage point margin of error, Trzaskowski had 50.3 percent compared to 49.7 percent for Nawrocki. Turnout was 71.6 percent.
Despite the early uncertainty Nawrocki insisted that he would prevail. “We will win tonight,” he said as his supporters chanted: “Karol Nawrocki, the president of Poland.”
Centrist Rafał Trzaskowski was narrowly ahead of his populist rival Karol Nawrocki in Poland’s presidential election. | Jarek Praszkiewicz/EPA
Nawrocki, backed by the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party and also by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, aims to pull Poland away from the European mainstream in a more populist direction.
A Nawrocki victory deals a significant blow to the Tusk government. Many of its legislative efforts had been blocked by PiS-aligned incumbent President Andrzej Duda and that is likely to continue under Nawrocki.
In his speech immediately after the polls closed, when the result was still in doubt, Nawrocki said: “We will save Poland, we will not allow the power of Donald Tusk to be complete.”
“Nawrocki’s presidency means a high-level conflict between the president and Tusk,” said Joanna Sawicka, a political analyst with Polityka Insight, a Warsaw-based think tank. “But it’s clear that it will be difficult for the government to implement key reforms because the president can veto most of them.”
The Polish presidency is a largely ceremonial function, and the government is in charge of foreign policy, but the president can veto legislation or send it off for judicial review. The Tusk-led coalition doesn’t have the votes in parliament to override that, so a President Nawrocki will make it very difficult for the prime minister to govern.
“The opposition camp, now led by Nawrocki, may also strive for early parliamentary elections, although it is not clear if this strategy could succeed. If not, a change in power is likely in 2027 anyway,” Sawicka added.
Nawrocki battled a cascade of revelations about his past including accusations that he helped arrange prostitutes for guests of a luxury hotel while working as a security guard, that he took part in fights as a football hooligan and that he acquired an apartment from a pensioner under questionable circumstances.
Conservative voters strongly backed Nawrocki, worried about Trzaskowski’s liberal record as mayor of Warsaw, where he supported LGBTQ+ rights and was out of step with the powerful Roman Catholic Church hierarchy.
Nawrocki ran on the ticket of making Poland “normal,” hinting strongly he would fight the EU’s federalist tendencies, oppose climate policy, torpedo attempts to give more rights to LGBTQ+ people or relax Poland’s strict abortion rights.
He also promised he would block Ukraine’s bid to join NATO.
The tight result of the election shows Poland’s deep political divisions — riven between the more liberal cities and conservative smaller towns and villages, between those who back the EU and those favoring a strong nationalist country, and between liberals and people hewing to traditional values and a strong role for the Roman Catholic Church.
Those splits are nothing new.
In 2020, Duda defeated Trzaskowski for the presidency by 51 percent to 49 percent.
This article has been updated.
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