By Thomas Weber 
Elena Lasconi, USR candidate for President of Romania (Daniel Mihailescu/AFP)
Voters in Romania will head to the polls on May 4, 2025, to select a new president, after the results of the nation’s 2024 presidential election were annulled by the Constitutional Court on December 6.
The annulled 2024 results showed far-right independent Cǎlin Georgescu and center-right Save Romania Union (USR) candidate Elena Lasconi headed to a December 8 runoff after no candidate reached 50% of the vote. However, the runoff was canceled by the Constitutional Court when then-President Klaus Iohannis, a member of the National Liberal Party (PNL), released intelligence alleging Russian interference in the election. According to Romanian intelligence, Russia used content on thousands of TikTok accounts to promote Georgescu’s poorly funded campaign without identifying the content as election-related to comply with Romania’s campaign laws.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller released a statement on Romania’s election on December 4, declaring that the department was “concerned” about the allegations made by Romanian intelligence, adding that “data referenced in the report should be fully investigated to ensure the integrity of Romania’s election process.” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen also spoke out in December, announcing that the European Union would begin “thoroughly investigating whether TikTok has violated the Digital Services Act” in connection to the Russian interference claims.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Liapev, Russia’s ambassador to Romania, declared that Russia “in no way influenced the Romanian presidential election, and this is obvious to any rational person,” blaming the incident on an “internal political struggle” in Romania instead.
Although the discourse over whether Russia interfered in Romania’s 2024 election is ongoing, the impacts are already being seen in the 2025 campaign. Iohannis resigned from the presidency on February 12, 2025 to avoid impeachment proceedings over the situation, leaving Ilie Bolojan, the Senate President, as the acting president. In March, Georgescu was banned from running in the 2025 race due to the alleged Russian interference on his behalf. Since Georgescu reported that his campaign budget was empty but the social media campaign in his favor was estimated to have a €50 million value, his compliance with Romania’s campaign finance laws was brought into question. And in April, the USR’s leadership abandoned its support of Lasconi to endorse Bucharest Mayor Nicuşor Dan for the presidency instead.
Georgescu’s place in the far-right sphere of the Romanian electorate could be filled by Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) candidate George Simion, who placed fourth in the 2024 election with 13.86% of the vote. Simion, who describes his AUR party as “almost perfectly aligned ideologically with the MAGA movement” in the United States, is a critic of the 2024 election annulment and an opponent of continued military aid to Ukraine amid its war with Russia. Additionally, according to Reuters, Simion has been a proponent of “restoring Romania’s pre-World War Two borders, which include areas now in Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine.”
Lasconi, the mayor of Câmpulung, will run in the 2025 election with the USR label. However, her party’s move to unify behind Dan could complicate her hopes of reaching the May 18 runoff. Lasconi called her party’s move toward Dan a “big injustice” and “a major abuse,” but her protests might not be enough to stop Dan’s momentum. Both candidates are stronger supporters of Ukraine funding than Simion. Dan has specifically criticized United States President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine, charging that “we have seen big pressure on the Ukrainian side but we didn’t see similar pressure on the Russian side” from the United States toward ending the war.
Two more independent candidates, Crin Antonescu and Victor Ponta, are considered credible candidates in this election. Antonescu was the PNL leader from 2009 to 2014, and he briefly served as Romania’s acting president in 2012 when then-President Traian Băsescu was suspended from his post by parliament. Antonescu is backed by the PNL, the Social Democrats (PSD), and the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR). POLITICO’s Carmen Paun and Dato Parulava describe Antonescu as “the establishment candidate” of the race, citing his alliances with the three parties. Ponta was the Prime Minister of Romania from 2012 to 2015 and the president of the PSD from 2010 to 2015, but Paun and Parulava point out that he is now “hoping to attract Georgescu’s voters” as he seeks a political comeback.
According to POLITICO’s Poll of Polls for the first round of voting on May 4, Simion leads the field with 30% support, followed by Antonescu at 24%, Dan at 22%, Ponta at 10%, and Lasconi at 7%. None of these numbers are near the required 50% support to win the presidency, so the May 18 runoff is likely. However, polling in Romania has shown to be unreliable, as Georgescu’s first place finish in the first-round in 2024 was unexpected, since he barely registered in polls and declared no campaign budget.
Preliminary results in the first round will be released at 9 p.m. EET (local time), which is 2 p.m. EST. POLITICO’s Poll of Polls will display the results as they come in. At the latest, the May 18 runoff matchup will be known on May 9, unless one candidate receives more than 50% support to win the presidency outright.