The election results are being closely watched in Brussels and Washington, as Romania has become the latest battleground between the hard right and political establishment. Simion has unapologetically badged himself as a supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.
Sunday’s vote was part of the election do-over that Romania’s top court ordered in December, after canceling the November ballot over allegations of illegal campaigning and potential Russian interference in favor of Călin Georgescu, an ultranationalist firebrand who came out of nowhere to win the first round.
Simion hoped to harness the election support Georgescu built last year by saying he’ll have a job for him, even possibly as prime minister.
“We are approaching an exceptional result, far beyond what the system’s TV channels present, which stirred up division, sprayed venom and distorted everything I said,” Simion said in a message projected at his party’s headquarters after the exit polls were released.
The challengers
Among the candidates vying to face Simion in the second round, Dan and Antonescu are neck-and-neck across the exit polls.
Dan is an independent candidate who has been the mayor of Bucharest, Romania’s capital, since 2020. A mathematician, he moved into activism and politics in the late 1990s upon his return from Paris, where he had completed his doctoral studies. His activism, he said, aimed to counter the “real estate mafia” in an effort to preserve green spaces and heritage sites in Bucharest.
