Poland delivers Trump his first electoral victory in Europe
The narrow margin of their candidate's win did not diminish the triumph for Polish nationalists. By garnering 50.89% of the vote in the June 1 runoff against Warsaw's liberal, pro-European Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski (49.11%), Karol Nawrocki returned Poland, the European Union's sixth-largest economy, to the conservative fold now dominated by Donald Trump. "You could […] say the 'Washington Express' has arrived in Warsaw," celebrated Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, another member of this conservative circle, delighted to expand the club that already includes Italy's Giorgia Meloni and Slovakia's Robert Fico.
The driving forces of an election are first and foremost domestic. In this case, the ultraconservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, represented by Nawrocki – a 42-year-old historian and complete newcomer to politics – once again succeeded in stoking and exploiting the potent nationalism that permeates Polish society. In a country that has narrowly escaped disappearance multiple times and where it is common for conversations to turn to grievances against the world at large, and Western Europe in particular, this is a decisive factor.
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