Romania has elected a centrist, and the margin was wider than almost anyone expected. Nicușor Dan, the mayor of Bucharest, beat the hard-right candidate George Simion in the May 2025 runoff, having trailed far behind when the first round was held two weeks earlier.
By 1:50 a.m. on Monday, with 99.8 percent of stations tallied, Dan held 53.8 percent to Simion’s 46.2 percent. Turnout reached 65 percent, the highest since 1996.
The two men could hardly be more different. Dan, 55, is a former mathematician and an independent who speaks in a measured register. Simion, 38, leads the AUR party, models himself on Donald Trump and wants to halt aid to Ukraine.
Defeat came in stages. Simion declared himself the winner on Sunday night, even as exit polls and early returns ran against him; by early Monday he had conceded. He told his backers, more than five million of them, that the result left a “bitter taste.”
Dan read the outcome as a reprieve, not a cure. He said the tension in Romanian society could persist “for months or years.”
Sources
- From favorite to failure: How George Simion lost to Nicușor Dan the Romanian presidential election
- Romanian election results: Moderate Nicușor Dan wins clear majority against ultranationalist George Simion – POLITICO
