With less than one month left until the first round of the presidential election, Romania has officially entered the campaign period. The nationalists’ first place seems to be guaranteed, so the real question is who AUR (ECR) leader George Simion will face off against in the runoff. The available data is highly contradicting.
According to the most recent nationwide poll, published by Flashdata on Monday, April 7th, the nationalist Simion—who took over from the banned frontrunner, Călin Georgescu—is leading public opinion with 28%. He is followed by the joint candidate of the establishment parties—the socialist PSD (S&D) and center-right PNL (EPP)—Crin Antonescu with 26%.
In third place, and thus likely disqualified from the second round, is liberal Bucharest mayor Nicușor Dan, a former member of the pro-European anti-establishment USR (Renew). Dan is followed by former socialist PM Victor Ponta (9%), who recently rebranded himself as a left-wing populist in an attempt to challenge Simion for Georgescu’s sovereigntist voter base; and USR leader Elena Lasconi (6%).
If this prediction is correct, Simion and Antonescu will advance to the second round for the presidency. The poll shows that the nationalist leader is likely to fall short, given that most pro-EU votes will go to the establishment candidate, who’s projected to win by 61%. Simion would also lose to Dan if he became the second contender.
That is, according to this single poll, which might be the most accurate as it stands closest to aggregate results over time. But, as usual in Romania, different polls show different outcomes depending on who commissioned them, as candidates in the pro-EU camp are scheming against each other for the second place.
Another fresh Verifield survey commissioned by Dan and published last week shows a ‘nightmare scenario’ for the establishment: Ponta in second place with 21.1%, followed by Dan with 20.8—and establishment candidate Antonescu dropping to fourth place with 16%.
Relying on this data, Dan asked all other pro-EU candidates to drop out of the race in favor of him to prevent two sovereigntists from advancing to the runoffs. The ruling parties naturally declined, arguing that Dan was just manipulating the data to show he was best suited to beat Simion.
A third survey conducted by Sociopol and published on Sunday, April 6th, also puts Ponta in second place with 22%, while giving Dan and Antonescu 16% and 14%, respectively. This poll’s real shocker is in the second-round projections, which show that Simion would beat both Dan and Antonescu, but would lose to the socialist ex-PM by a near ten-point margin.
Apart from Dan’s, this particular data strengthens Ponta’s argument, who simultaneously attacks his former comrades in the ruling parties and asks for their support against the nationalists.
In the end, it’s near impossible to accurately predict what will happen on May 4th. The only thing that all seven main polling agencies agree on is Simion’s first-round victory with 27% to 35% of the total votes. Out of the seven, however, four put Antonescu in second place, while two show Ponta, and one says it will be Dan to face off with Simion two weeks later.
So purely by numbers, the runoff should be a Simion vs. Antonescu scenario, from where the latter would emerge victorious. However, the establishment could be just as guilty of manipulating the data as the other three camps, so there is a chance that there are going to be some surprises come May—similar to what happened last December when no candidate from the ruling parties advanced to the second round, contradicting the projections of the most trusted polling firms.
There’s also the question of who will benefit mostly from the record-high turnout expected this time. In December, turnout was less than 53%, while the Flashdata poll suggests it could be closer to 80% now, due to the past months of political instability.
