WARSAW—In the Polish capital’s bustling city centre, glass-and-steel office towers reflect a country transformed. Warsaw has become an emblem of Poland’s economic success since joining the European Union in 2004. And Rafał Trzaskowski, who has served as mayor since 2018, has made that renewal central to his presidential campaign.
Now, Trzaskowski — backed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing Civic Coalition — is locked in a tight runoff with national-conservative Karol Nawrocki, who has the support of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party.
Current polling compiled by Politico puts Trzaskowski at 50% and Nawrocki at 49% — a statistical dead heat. Trzaskowski narrowly led the first round of voting by just two percentage points, setting the stage for a closely watched runoff.
If Trzaskowski, a centrist, were to eke out a win in Sunday’s vote, he’s vowed he would speed up efforts to fully restore the rule of law, which have been stalled by President Andrzej Duda.
Duda is a holdover from the PiS era of 2015–2023, during which the party controlled both the presidency and premiership. The PiS government cracked down on judicial and media independence, as well as civil rights, drawing sharp criticism from Brussels. The party’s consolidation of power triggered a rule-of-law dispute with the EU, resulting in the suspension of billions of euros in funding.
Donald Tusk — who hails from the pro-EU centre right and served as a European Council president — returned to power in 2023 promising a reset in EU-Poland relations. But his coalition has struggled to deliver on key promises of strengthening the rule of law and restoring judicial independence. While the role of president is largely ceremonial, it carries veto power, which Duda has used to block several of Tusk’s legislative efforts.
“Tusk currently can’t execute his reforms because of the cohabitation with Duda,” Spasimir Domaradzki, a political scientist at the University of Warsaw, told The Parliament. “It’s a really decisive moment…whether Tusk will be able to implement his promises or if he endures opposition in the same way.”
Competing visions for Poland’s future
Trzaskowski has drawn support from business leaders and pro-European voters who see him as best placed to re-establish rule-of-law standards and unlock frozen EU funds. His message of liberal values and deeper European integration has resonated in the capital and other major urban centres.
“He will keep Poland on the right track for the future. What we need now is to be a modern European country, not go back to the past,” Piotr Raczkowski, who owns a local taxi company in central Warsaw, told The Parliament.
But outside the capital, in smaller towns and rural communities, Nawrocki’s message is striking a chord. Many small business owners view the EU as a source of costly regulations. Nawrocki’s platform — rooted in national pride, cultural conservatism and targeted tax relief — blames the rising cost of living on both the EU and the Tusk government.
“We can hardly afford to keep our business afloat,” Tomasz, who owns a farm supply shop 15 kilometres outside Warsaw, told The Parliament. He said he’s voting for Nawrocki, who has promised lower energy bills and more support for Polish farmers. “The EU shouldn’t tell us what we can or can’t do. Only Polish elected officials really know what we need.”
While Poland’s economy is among the fastest growing in the EU — the European Commission forecasts 3.3% growth this year — the benefits have not been evenly distributed. The COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have driven up prices for food, energy and housing. Although inflation has slowed from its 2022 peak, many families still feel the pressure of rising costs.
“The main problem is the economy. We have experienced 20 years of increasing welfare, increasing well-being, until the pandemic and till the war,” Jarosław Flis, a professor of sociology at Krakow University, told The Parliament. “This is a referendum if this government is better or worse than the previous government.”
A European bellwether
The election is drawing attention across the EU. In a region where Hungary and Slovakia have are ruled by nationalists of the PiS ilk, Poland’s vote is seen as a test for the resilience of liberal democracy in central and eastern Europe.
The contest pits a liberal vision of Poland at the heart of EU policymaking against a nationalist, Eurosceptic worldview. Under PiS, Poland frequently aligned with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in opposing the European mainstream. Since Tusk’s return, Warsaw has worked to rebuild alliances with EU heavyweights like Berlin and Paris.
“This election is really about a choice for the kind of civilisation we want. It’s a question if we will be a modern country, cooperating with other European countries, or if we are going to look to the east,” Kinga Łozińska, vice-president of the Committee for the Defence of Democracy, a Polish NGO promoting rule of law, told The Parliament.
She added: “We would like to have a democratic president who respects the law and regulation and respects Poland’s membership in the European Union.”
Security, sovereignty and the EU
Trzaskowski, a former member of the European Parliament, has focused his campaign on judicial reform and European cooperation. He supports greater defence integration within the EU, while also maintaining strong ties with the United States.
“He tends more towards economic and security cooperation with Berlin and with Paris,” Szymon Polewka of the Warsaw Institute, a geopolitical think tank, told The Parliament. “After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the bigger push in the European Union towards the establishment of a kind of security union is now fully supported by both Trzaskowski and Tusk.”
Nawrocki, a former boxer and nightclub bouncer who now heads the Institute of National Remembrance, has made national sovereignty and Catholic values central to his campaign. He has sharply criticised Brussels and pledged to put “Poland first” in both domestic and foreign policy.
“For Law and Justice, Western partners are not the guarantees of the sovereignty and the peace in Poland,” said Polewka. He noted that memories of World War II — when Britain and France failed to intervene in time to stop Germany from invading its eastern neighbour — still shape Polish views on its allies to the west.
Ahead of the first round of the presidential election, Nawrocki travelled to Washington, DC, where he met with US President Donald Trump. His campaign has cast the US as Poland’s most reliable ally. During the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) — held in Poland for the first time earlier this week — US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem encouraged Poles to vote for Nawrocki.
“Nawrocki is playing his one card, that he’s the guy that cooperates well with the current administration in the White House,” said Polewka.
Mobilising voters
The outcome now depends on who can better mobilise his base — and appeal to voters whose candidates were eliminated in the first round. Trzaskowski must win over backers of smaller left-leaning parties, despite frustration over the slow pace of reform under the Tusk government.
While he has emphasised civil rights like protections for the LGBT community and access to abortion — issues that resonate with younger voters — these priorities have seen limited progress since 2023. For many, the election is as much about the government’s performance as about Trzaskowski himself.
“The more progressive voters are, of course, disappointed by the almost two years of Donald Tusk’s government,” Annamaria Linczowska of the Warsaw-based Campaign Against Homophobia told The Parliament. “Important legal changes, for what the LGBT+ community is waiting for, have not been passed.”
While Tusk blames Duda’s veto power, the delay has shaken public confidence in Civic Coalition — and by extension, Trzaskowski.
“The sole source of hope for Trzaskowski is the mobilisation of those who didn’t want to vote in the first round,” said the University of Warsaw’s Domaradzki. He argued that Nawrocki’s path to victory may be more straightforward, given his ability so far to consolidate support among rural and conservative voters.
A Nawrocki win could pave the way for PiS to return to power in the 2027 parliamentary elections. “Then his euroscepticism could be empowered,” Domaradzki said. And that, he warned, “would mean a setback for Brussels.”
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