Poland's presidential candidates seek to broaden appeal on campaign trail after nail-biting first round vote
Morning opening: Changed priorities ahead Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature Jakub Krupa
Good morning from Poland, where the top two candidates in last night's presidential elections – centrist Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski and radical-right historian Karol Nawrocki – wasted no time this morning before hitting the campaign trail again ahead of the run-off in two weeks' time.
The final results, published this morning, put Trzaskowski marginally ahead at 31.36%, with Nawrocki at 29.54%. Mayor of Warsaw and Civic Coalition (KO) candidate for the Polish presidential election, Rafal Trzaskowski (C) meets with local residents in Tarnobrzeg, Poland. Photograph: Piotr Polak/EPA
With both of them now having to broaden their appeal to get to 50%+1 on 1 June, we will inevitably some changing priorities in their campaigns.
There is plenty of votes to be won, but what makes it unusually tricky is that they could come from a very diverse – even diametrically opposed - group of candidates.
Devising an electoral strategy to get votes off Sławomir Mentzen, the libertarian anti-establishment candidate, who came third at 14.8% and radical right Grzegorz Braun (6.34%), while also securing the support of left-of-centre voters who backed Adrian Zandberg (4.86%) and Magdalena Biejat (4.23%) or centrist supporters of Szymon Hołownia (4.99%) could prove to be quite a challenge.
As Dr Ben Stanley told our Super Sunday blog last night, 'candidate electorates are not Lego blocks' as he warned 'those who are stacking them to project second round results are overlooking substantial heterogeneity.'
I will also bring you some European reactions to the votes in Romania and Portugal, and all other key updates from across Europe.
It's Monday, 19 May 2025, it's Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
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