Trump-backed conservative Karol Nawrocki wins Poland presidential election

Karol Nawrocki, a conservative nationalist, has won Poland’s presidential election. He was supported by US President Donald Trump.

Nawrocki has beaten his liberal rival Rafal Trzaskowski, the Mayor of Warsaw, in a narrow victory.

Nawrocki won 10,606,628 votes (50.89 per cent) and Trzaskowski won 10,237,177 (49.11 per cent), according to the final count.

Nawrocki, 42, is a historian by training and has little political experience. However, his inexperience is understood to have worked in his favour as his party, Law and Justice, had sought to rebrand itself in the election. Trzaskowski, 53, is a career politician from the liberal Civic Platform party of Prime Minister Donald Tusk. This was his second presidential run after losing narrowly to outgoing President Andrzej Duda in 2020.

The 2025 Polish presidential election was considered critical for the country as well as Europe as the two rivals presented vastly different visions. While Trzakowski presented a pro-European Union (EU) future with a liberal social agenda, Nawrocki —who has finally won— pitched nationalism and a conservative social agenda. While Trzakowski sought to restore judicial independence, Nawrocki is set to continue with the politicisation of the judiciary under outgoing President Duda.

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Trzakowski also channelled frustrations with outgoing Duda’s opposition to liberal values, such as abortion rights and rights of LGBTQ+ people. He championed the Poland’s membership of the EU, which has enriched the country over the past two decades to the extent that hundreds of thousands of Poles have moved back to the country who had relocated elsewhere for employment.

While Trzakowski sought to end the Duda-led dispute with the EU over the rule of law, migration, and LGBTQ+ rights, and seek funding from the EU, Nawrocki is now set to double down on the conservative positions on these social issues, disputes with the EU, and crackdown on the judiciary’s independence. His campaign was also defined by skepticism of the EU and emphasis on Christian identity of Poland.

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The support for Ukraine has also been on the line. While Prime Minister Tusk and much of Poland have been leading champions of Ukraine, and both contestants said they would support Ukraine, Nawrocki said Ukraine should never join Nato and Tusk maintains that Ukraine may join Nato at some point in the future.

Nawrocki is the latest member of the growing bloc of right-wing leaders in Europe aligned with Trump of the United States. As he draws his power in part from such a pro-Russia bloc, his continued support of Ukraine is not assured.

After supporting far-right figures in the United Kingdom (Nigel Farage of Reform UK), France (Marine Le Pen of National Rally), and Germany (Alice Weidel of AfD), Trump had supported Nawrocki in Poland. In clear election interference that has become policy under the Trump administration, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem endorsed Nawrocki at a conservative conference in Polish capital Warsaw last week.

Noem went on to slam Trzakowski, who is from the same party as Tusk, as a “train wreck”.

“It matters who’s in charge. I have watched over the years as socialists and people that are just like this mayor out of Warsaw that is an absolute train wreck of a leader have destroyed our countries because they have led by fear. They have used fear to control people, and they’ve used fear to promote an agenda that is not what liberty is about, that is not what freedom is about,” said Noem.