Polish Politics and Elections

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Outside of Holownia have any other candidates endorsed yet? Is it normal for endorsements after the 1st round by the losing candidates?

Hołownia is now enjoying being wooed by the top two. He may very well end up not endorsing, but he'd been sending some signals he could give Duda an "anti-endorsement". Same for WKK. I hear Bosak may not endorse, period.

Biedroń is clearly going to endorse Trzaskowski.

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There's been some interesting stuff going on with the paper ballots missing the official red seal.

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Based on the distribution of the vote so far it does seem as though rural voters are likely fueling the turnout bump. But a lot of city people are in boutique resort towns on holiday and younger urban voters may indeed show up late as they usually do.

Reports were of long lines of tourists voting in the resort towns on the coast.

Originally the election was supposed to take place in May, but we all know the virus made it impossible. Before 2010 presidential elections were always held in the autumn, but the Smoleńsk crash changed the calendar.

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Exit poll will show nothing. We will probably have to wait for all votes, even those from diaspora.

I remember the 1995 election. I knew nothing, except I really liked Wałęsa, mostly because of his mustache. I don't think I even remembered Kwaśniewski's name, he was just the other guy without cool staches. It only became certain the next morning Kwaśniewski won and I was pretty upset.

During all presidential elections since (when I learned there's more to candidates than having or not having a mustache) it was always more or less clear who won on the election night. Even the last time, with the real results being pretty close, the exit polls showed Duda with the margin that we knew were highly improbable for Komorowski (a case study on how to f**k up an election everybody used to think you had in a bad) to overcome.

If I had to make a call at gunpoint now, I'd join all others in this thread leaning toward a narrow Duda's victory, but I'm more and more convinced we won't have a clear projection tonight.

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Walmart shopper, make sure you're not getting your info from the Kondominium Twitter account. That guy is infamous for s--tting up Polish Twitter with misinformation.

Haha okay. Yeah, he seems much more optimistic right now (he is anti-Duda) than others on Twitter. I take his word for it that trendlines are good for Rafał but the PiS people seem fairly confident, too. In any case it is clear that the cities picked up a lot after noon. A key PO bastion, Szczecin, is also up over 3% officially from Round 1.

I just think it will he very tight and anyone who feels confident one way or another is probably just wishcasting.

I do not want Duda to win re-election, I just think he will.

And probably not by a small margin.

He has a good base from round 1 and the 4th placed guy is a right-winger too and combined, these 2 already got 50%+ in round 1 ...

This is a valid point, although it's not so safe to assume Bosak's voters will go over to Duda as whole, simply because he's more right-wing than Trzaskowski. Konfederacja is not friendly with PiS, because they're the competition on the right side. Some Bosak voters may buy into "but PiS is so socialist" narrative for morons, some may be thinking in terms of longtime strategy of weakening PiS, leading to absentions or more votes for Trzaskowski than anticipated.  

I mean, Duda will get bigger share of Bosak's voters, but we really won't have a full picture for some time.

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So, which time you guys voted? I voted around 1 PM.

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What time to polls close?

9 PM. A little less than three hours from now.

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Kaczyński's been trolled while voting:





The shirt says "conquer the evil with laughter".

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Question:

If tourists vote elsewhere (coast, woods where they go hiking), is their vote counted where they vote ? Or where they usually live ?

I'm quite sure their vote is counted where they vote.

In case of Poles voting abroad, votes are being counted in Warsaw, both in presidential and parliamentary elections.

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Change in turnout seems to be very high in rural areas

https://twitter.com/MarcinPalade/status/1282364824446525440

<5000 inhabitants
...
>500.000

The dark red in the northeast is Poland's lake country, with various boutique villages in which people have cabins, homes, boats, etc. The southern red splotch is a giant national park. You are seeing the biggest increases among all of these tiny summer resort towns.

In any case, a 3% increase in a big city is vastly better than a 10% increase in a podunk lake town if you are trying to rack up votes.

Yes, it's not just coastal towns/villages people on holiday are voting.

If the election was being held in the autumn, you'd be seeing a lower turnout for that reason.

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It's too close to call, basically. Take a chill pill, everyone, we won't know for some time.

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Imagine the results if Kidawa was still running, lol.

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Trzaskowski  has also claimed victory

Lol, he must be desperate to steal the election.

If anybody was "stealing" the election it was the government side, using every means to help Duda, including the Postal Service distributing purely partisan propaganda.

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OK, I decided not to watch candidates' speeches, but from what I've heard Duda outright proclaimed victory, while Trzaskowski said he believes his side will prevail at the final count. Can anybody correct me?

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Let's wait and see, but this is concerning.

Everything in Poland is concerning

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Late exit poll will be up shortly after midnight, which is 13 minutes from now.

It can be pretty interesting, given the last hour and a half of voting was not included in the exit poll published when the polls closed.

Sorry if this was mentioned already, but turnout is projected, per an early exit poll, at 68,9%, which would be a record.

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Just to compare the turnout from previous direct presidential elections:

1990: 60.6%/53.4%
1995: 64.7%/68.2%
2000: 61.08% (no runoff)
2005: 49.6%/51.0%
2010: 54.94%/55.31%
2015: 48.96%/55.34%

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Oh well.

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Oh well.

Not sure about that.   It does seem the exit poll does not take into account the international vote.  Sure, I would prefer to be Duda than not. But it is not a lock for him yet.  

I'm "sure" either, but let's say I'm not hopeful.

Oh well.

'Poland has accepted Hungary's friendship request.'

You better make Scotland independent fast, because I may need a place to take refugee. I'm only half-joking.

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It appears the voting in Split, Croatia, is still ongoing and can go as far as five more hours.

There's a rule that if you were in line before the polls closing time, you'll still get to vote, and it appears to extend to voting abroad. It's not just Poles living abroad that votes abroad, but people on holiday as well.

390 registered to vote in Dalmatia for the first round, but now they expect it could be as many as three thousand.

https://twitter.com/TyszkiewiczElk/status/1282405455785005057

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I kind of take solace in the notion that due to polarization it would be even more difficult for Kaczyński to go Orban, his slim majority and the rubber-stamp President notwithstanding (because Duda himself doesn't matter, he's a mediocre man with no spine who'll sign anything his boss tells him to sign). I'd feel much more confident with Trzaskowski, who would at least veto authoritiarian projects the government passes, but it doesn't seem to be.

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From a quick look at the results at county level, it seems that Poland's political divide is shifting from East-West to Rural-Urban. Duda is performing far better in the villages in the west even winning a few he did not in 2015 while performing worse in the medium to larger cities, narrowly losing Lublin where he won in 2015.

Rather fascinating that Duda has only won with six provinces (and hardly the most populous ones at that) and without winning any of the major cities.

He lost Masovia, which is pretty much a big WTF. Of course it was largely Warsaw that put Trzaskowski over the top, but so far the rest of the voivodeship always outvoted the capital.

I don't want to sound like somebody trying to spin the loss, because it was a loss for "my" side, and I do feel rather disappointed, but with some more time, Trzaskowski might've won. He entered the race, which was put on hold due to the lockdown, very late, and Duda has the advantage of campaigning for a long time.

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God bless Poland.

God, take your blessing somewhere else.

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I was hoping the guy who isn't a Fascist dictator wannabe would win.  

Duda isn't really a fascist dictator wannabe. He is a rubber stamp President, doing whatever a real wannabe Orban tells him to do. This is why many call him "the Pencil Man".

As much as I hate Kaczyński for political reason, I do have some begrudging respect for him as a strong individuality. Duda has no individuality.

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I was hoping the guy who isn't a Fascist dictator wannabe would win.  

Duda isn't really a fascist dictator wannabe. He is a rubber stamp President, doing whatever a real wannabe Orban tells him to do. This is why many call him "the Pencil Man".

As much as I hate Kaczyński for political reason, I do have some begrudging respect for him as a strong individuality. Duda has no individuality.

Also please, PiS is winning the elections rather fairly so any comparison of the to the fascists are just plain stupid. I wouldn't even compare them to Orban because they are at least pretending to be pro-labour and pro-social while Orban would do anything to appease German automotive companies, also destroying labour code. They are probably not the nicest party in Europe but do not use so farfetched comparisons. 

I've recently had an interesting conversation with a guy who's uncomfortable with many things PiS is saying (the "LGBT ideology", for example), but still voted for Duda because PiS actually did "something" in the "social sphere". Even if those were a half-assed measures clearly designed to gain electoral support, like the famous 500+. When some lemings are pushing the "PiS is just buying votes because of handouts" talking points, they're only strengthening the support for PiS.

Of course calling PiS "left-wing economically" is plain absurd, just as uninformed people are thinking PO is a "liberal" party in American sense.