A far-right candidate, either George Simion or Anamaria Gavrila, will win the first round of Romania’s May presidential election, but either would lose in the second round against Bucharest mayor Nicusor Dan, according to a poll carried out by AtlasIntel for HotNews between March 13-15.

It is premature to assume a victory for Dan, given the high political volatility in Romania. However, he was picked as the most appropriate next president by respondents. 

According to the poll, Simion or Gavrila would have a 5 percentage point (pp) lead over Dan (25%), while the ruling coalition’s candidate Crin Antonescu is rated at only 18%. Other relevant candidates are Victor Ponta, with around 9% electoral support and Union Save Romania (USR) leader Elena Lasoni (3.9%). 

In the second round, Dan would win against either Simion (42.1% versus 35.3%) or Gavrila (40.1% versus 31.7%). The spread is wider should Antonescu make it to the second round, with Dan projected to defeat him by spread of more than 10pp: 45.2% versus 35.1%. 

The poll indicates around 30% of the electorate would vote for any far-right candidate – be Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) leader Simion, the opportunistic Calin Georgescu or the totally unknown (until recently) Gavrila. 

Georgescu, whose presidential candidacy was rejected, had as much as 40% support in previous polls, which can be attributed to his TikTok activity, reportedly supported by an army of bots with Russian e-mail addresses.

The poll shows acting President Ilie Bolojan as the most trusted politician, with 53% of those polled expressing a positive view versus 38% having a negative view. Bolojan is also the only of the 11 politicians included in the survey with a positive balance of favourable views.

The second most trusted politician is Dan (40% versus 48%). Influential far-right politician Georgescu comes in third place not far from Dan: 38% versus 58%. 

When asked who was the best president of Romania, most of those polled picked Traian Băsescu, who had a score of 27.5% — quite outstanding after the austerity policies he had to rely on — followed by Bolojan (17.8%), whose credibility is intact after a month in office and only another two to follow. 

Also rated were Emil Constantinescu (13%), also the author of painful reforms, three times former president Ion Iliescu (6.5%) and Klaus Iohannis (1.3%). 

The research also looked at who would have received the most votes if the second round of last year's presidential election had taken place. The poll indicated Lasconi as the winner over Georgescu, but the narrow margin (0.7pp, 40.1% versus 39.4%) is smaller than the sample’s 2pp margin of error.