The Polish duopoly is cracking. May 18’s first-round presidential vote confirmed what the polls predicted: a runoff between centrist candidate Rafał Trzaskowski and his right-wing opponent Karol Nawrocki.
But beneath that pairing, the ground has shifted. Over a quarter of voters backed anti-system candidates, and the nationalist right now commands more than 20% of the national vote.
The two-party dominance of Civic Platform (PO) and Law and Justice (PiS) has survived. But for the first time in 20 years, its foundations appear shaky.
Trzaskowski, the liberal mayor of Warsaw backed by the ruling Civic Platform, came first with 31.2%. Nawrocki, a conservative historian and Law and Justice’s nominee, followed closely on 29.7%, a gap of just 1.5%.
But the electoral map tells a deeper story. Sławomir Mentzen of the far-right Confederation won 14.5%. Grzegorz Braun, an extremist pro-Russian nationalist, took 6.3%. Together with Nawrocki, the broader right has crossed 50%.
By contrast, the combined support for Trzaskowski, left-wingers Adrian Zandberg (4.8%) and Magdalena Biejat (4.1%), and centrist speaker of the lower house Szymon Hołownia (5%) adds up to just over 44%.
Turnout reached 66.8 percent, the highest in any Polish first-round presidential election. The system still stands, but the mood has moved on.
To win, Trzaskowski will need to mobilize disillusioned progressives and recapture center-ground voters. Though Nawrocki finished second, he is now the favorite going into the runoff.
Nawrocki was meant to be the clean conservative: a loyal PiS man without the baggage of government office. A devout Catholic, a historian of communist crimes, and a political outsider, he was chosen to channel national pride, moral clarity, and party discipline. His nomination was meant to distance the opposition from its more divisive and compromised figures.
Instead, Nawrocki ended up battling scandal. The flat he acquired from
an elderly man became a defining issue of the campaign. He changed his story repeatedly, backtracked under pressure, and eventually handed the property to a charity. Yet none of it tanked his support. PiS voters held the line, and in the end, he even gained ground.
Now, Nawrocki heads into the runoff as the unifying figure of the Polish right. His campaign never caught fire, but it didn’t need to. It was enough to stand still and absorb the momentum from those to his right.
His framing of Trzaskowski as a Trojan horse for Prime Minister Donald Tusk and of himself as the last defense against a full liberal takeover may resonate with the anti-elite instincts of Mentzen and Braun’s voters. He enters the second round with a clear path to victory.
Trzaskowski enters the runoff under pressure. His first-round campaign was widely seen as overly cautious, boring even. Despite leading the government bloc, he failed to channel momentum from Tusk’s parliamentary win last year or to connect with voters beyond his liberal core, despite moving to the right in the campaign with anti-migrant and anti-Ukrainian messaging.
To win, he must recover the trust on his left, persuade the center, and appear less like a manager of the status quo. That means motivating skeptical left-wing and centrists who may simply choose to stay home.
Since the first round result, Trzaskowski has tried to change the tone. In his post-result speech, he raised abortion rights, previously avoided, and offered cooperation on housing policy. But the challenge remains steep.
Neither of the two runoff candidates has a natural claim to the 25% of voters who opted for anti-system candidates in the first round. Yet these are the voters who will now decide the outcome.
Mentzen and Braun, together commanding over 20% of the vote, represent a bloc that is angry, alienated, and skeptical of both PiS and PO.
Their voters are not easy converts. Many may abstain. Others, especially Mentzen’s younger, libertarian followers, could be drawn by Nawrocki’s outsider image and hostility to the current government.
This is a runoff defined not by enthusiasm but by resistance. The side that wins may be the one that loses fewer voters to apathy.
This runoff is not just about who occupies the presidential palace. It is about whether the Polish state remains locked in a state of institutional warfare. If Karol Nawrocki wins, the presidency becomes a position to block key legislation, stall judicial reform, and act as a brake on EU integration. It would entrench Poland’s gridlock until at least the parliamentary elections in 2027.
If Rafał Trzaskowski wins, the government gains enormous additional freedom for its program of change and reform.
But both sides would be wise to notice that many voters are now looking beyond their established parties to new alternatives.
Stuart Dowell is a Warsaw-based journalist covering Polish politics, culture, and history. His writing has been featured in both Polish and UK media.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
War Without End
Russia’s Shadow Warfare
CEPA Forum 2025
Explore CEPA’s flagship event.
