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“Nicușor Dan once again received strong support from urban voters. However, while in the first round his victory was concentrated mainly in major university centers (Bucharest, Cluj, Timișoara, Iași, Sibiu, Brașov), this time he won every county capital except three (Giurgiu, Târgu Jiu, and Turnu Severin), along with many suburbs of large cities,” according to a demographic analysis of the vote conducted by ReThink Romania.
He also obtained the majority of votes in many medium or small towns. “For example, in Timiș he won in Lugoj and Sânnicolau Mare. In Suceava he won in six towns, the county seat and its suburbs. In Prahova he won in all the towns in the Prahova Valley, as well as in Ploiești”.
Apart from the Hungarians, who voted for him in extremely large numbers, Nicușor Dan was also preferred by “the Catholic population in the Moldavian region. For example, there is a group of communes located north of Roman (in Neamț and Iași counties) in which the (mostly Catholic) population voted predominantly for Nicușor Dan. The highest score was in Săbăoani, Neamț (60.67%)”.
“The Ukrainian community on the northern border seems to have however overwhelmingly voted for George Simion. Thus, the candidate obtained 87.65% in Poienile de sub Munte MM, 85.17% in Repedea MM and 87.43% in Ulma SV. These localities had Ukrainian majorities of 90.83%, 88.72% and 79.44% respectively,” the analysis also shows.
There were localities that broke regional trends in ways that are not immediately obvious. For example, the localities of Poroina Mare, Prunișor or Dârvari in Mehedinți opted for Nicușor Dan by 65-70%, while all urban areas were won by George Simion.
“Nicușor Dan obtained high scores in many of the major university centers, greatly increasing his advantage in the first round. Cluj-Napoca stood out in particular, where he obtained 81.35% of the total votes. Of the other 16 cities with over 100,000 inhabitants, he obtained over 2/3 of the votes in six: 78.69% in Târgu Mureș, 73.26% in Oradea, 72.19% in Iași, 71.96% in Brașov, 70.52% in Sibiu and 69.19% in Timișoara.”
In Bucharest, Nicușor Dan won all sectors with scores starting from 73.71% in S6 and dropping to 59.3% in S5, the only sector in which he obtained less than 2/3 of the votes.
“The largest municipality that voted with George Simion was Turnu Severin. The county in which he had the highest score and won in the most UATs was Gorj: he obtained 61.48% of the votes and won in every UAT except the small commune of Arcani. In Gorj, Mehedinți and Giurgiu, Nicușor Dan won exclusively in rural localities”, the ReThink study also shows.
In an interview with the Financial Times, President-elect Nicusor Dan had a message for Romanians who did not elect him.
“I understand the 5 million voters who supported Simion,” said Nicusor Dan. “Their reasons are not ideological, but are related to economic and social frustrations,” he added. “We have to admit that the Romanian state promised a lot of things that it did not fulfill,” he said.
Dan admitted to the British business publication that his performance and that of the new government would be essential to prevent the far right from winning the next parliamentary elections in 2028.
Corruption, mismanagement and a widening wealth gap have contributed to this anger against the political system, he said. “Many politicians from the old parties understand that they need to change.”
In his first speech after winning the election, Nicușor Dan had a message for the voters of his opponent, George Simion. He said then that there is a community that lost the election, “a community that is rightly outraged by the way politics has been done in Romania so far.” “It is our obligation to convince these people that the solution for Romanian society is judicial reform and administrative reform in this country so that Romania can move forward. It is the task of all of us to fight for one Romania, not two Romanias,” Dan said.
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He won many Small Towns! Wow, I am amassed they understood what he was talking about in the campaign!