Marcel Ciolacu, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) in the Romanian presidential election, leads the race, according to the latest opinion poll conducted by AtlasIntel during November 15-20 and published by HotNews.ro.

Thus, Marcel Ciolacu remains the favorite of Romanian voters and opens the rankings with a score of 24.3%. The struggle for reaching the runoff is between George Simion and Elena Lasconi, with a very small difference. The leader of the National Liberal Party Nicolae Ciucă garnered 12.1 percent, IPN reports.

The next in the rankings are:

• Călin Georgescu – 6.2%
• Kelemen Hunor – 5.9%
• Ana Birchall – 4.2%
• Cristian Diaconescu – 3.3%
• Cristian Terheș – 2.1%

The AtlasIntel survey was carried out during November 15-20, 2024 and covered a sample of 2,003 respondents. The methodology used was random digital recruitment. The margin of sampling error is ±2 percent, while the confidence level is 95%.

Romanian citizens residing in the Republic of Moldova and the diaspora are expected to vote from Friday, November 22, until Sunday, November 24 inclusive. The Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that 950 polling stations will be established for the Romanians abroad, 59 polling stations of which will be in the Republic of Moldova.

During the first round of the presidential election in the diaspora and the Republic of Moldova, polls will be opened from 12:00 noon to 09:00 p.m. on Friday (November 22) and from 07:00 a.m. to 09:00 p.m. on Saturday (November 23) and Sunday (November 24).

The presidential election runoff is scheduled for December 8.

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