George Simion, a right-wing nationalist who has promised to “Make Romania Great Again,” won the first round of his country’s presidential election on Sunday, bucking the recent trend of voters punishing candidates seen as friendly to President Trump.
With more than 98 percent of the votes cast inside Romania counted, Mr. Simion was far ahead of 10 rival candidates, garnering more than 40 percent. A partial count of the votes of Romanians living abroad, who generally tilt hard right, also gave Mr. Simion a big lead.
The results, though incomplete, ensured Mr. Simion a slot in a runoff on May 18 against the likely second-place finisher, Nicusor Dan, the centrist mayor of Bucharest, Romania’s capital.
Unlike voters in Canada and Australia who in recent elections favored parties openly opposed to Mr. Trump, Romanians, by supporting Mr. Simion, rewarded one of Europe’s most vocal admirers of the MAGA movement.
Romanian voters also gave a strong rebuke to a decision in December by the country’s Constitutional Court to annul an earlier first round of the presidential ballot and to cancel the victory of Calin Georgescu, an ultranationalist. He was charged in February with various crimes, including illegal campaigning and involvement in the establishment of an organization “with a fascist, racist or xenophobic character.”
Mr. Georgescu, who was barred from competing in the rescheduled vote, voted on Sunday alongside Mr. Simion. Both men have cast themselves as champions of ordinary Romanians against a corrupt establishment.
Celebrating the results Sunday evening, Mr. Simion declared the election a “victory for Romanian dignity.”
“Despite the obstacles,” he said, “despite the manipulation, despite a press paid to demean us day after day, Romanians have stood up.”
Elections workers outside Bucharest on Sunday.Credit…Andreea Campeanu/Reuters
Mr. Simion shares many of Mr. Georgescu’s views, including hostility to the European Union and opposition to military aid for Ukraine. A fixture of Romanian politics for years, however, he is far better known — and is seen as somewhat more predictable — than Mr. Georgescu, an erratic figure prone to mystical ruminations and to admiring comments about past Romanian fascists.
Few Romanians had heard of Mr. Georgescu until he won the initial round of the vote after a surge of support driven by a mysterious flood of videos on TikTok in the final days of the campaign.
The Constitutional Court canceled his victory just two days before a December runoff vote that Mr. Georgescu had been well positioned to win. The court said it had wanted “to ensure the correctness and legality of the electoral process.”
The court’s intervention prompted street protests and complaints by Vice President JD Vance that Europe was in “retreat” from democracy and free speech. The ruling came after Romania’s security service released declassified intelligence reports that pointed to possible Russian interference in the election campaign, but provided no solid evidence of that.
Romania’s president has limited powers, but they include overall command of the armed forces, a big say in military spending and oversight of foreign policy. Control of economic and other domestic policies rests with Parliament, in which centrist forces have a narrow majority.
Andrada Lautaru contributed reporting from Bucharest.
