what went wrong for george simion in romania's presidential election?

In the second round of Romania's 2025 presidential election, George Simion delivered one of the most lackluster campaigns in the nation's contemporary political history. A series of strategic missteps turned what should have been a decisive win (or at least a very competitive race) into a textbook example of political mismanagement.

First, Simion adopted a baffling communications approach by avoiding live debates and relying almost exclusively on pre-recorded messages. This was evident right from the start, with a meandering and rambling pre-recorded clip released immediately after the first round of voting while all of his opponents spoke live in front of their supporters and took questions from the media. This strategy got stranger during the last days of the campaign when Simion started posting messages and videos on X in English, suggesting that his main goal on that platform was to grab the attention of conservatives in the United States rather than to directly engage with his Romanian voters and his main opponent, Nicusor Dan. For a candidate that had built a political career out of telling everyone that he is "Romania first," prioritizing his foreign audience on an important social media platform was a confusing choice.

Secondly, in the few press interviews Simion did grant, his performance was hesitant and defensive. Rather than project confidence and decisiveness, critical qualities voters seek in a president, Simion appeared ill-prepared and uncertain. Journalists’ questions often left him visibly uncomfortable, undermining his credibility and diminishing public trust in his capacity to handle Romania's complex issues. For example, during an interview with Digi24, Simion made a stunning admission that a popular promise he had made in his campaign to give affordable houses to convince Romanians to return from working abroad was in fact just a marketing gimmick to help him secure more votes. In another interview with an American far-right social media influencer, he praised the US government's recent decision to remove Romania from the visa waiver program, positioning as a just punishment for the cancelling of the 2024 presidential election — again, an odd choice given his "Romania first" rhetoric.

Third, Simion's decision to largely skip debates was not only unsound, but the single debate he participated in with Euronews Romania fully exposed his vulnerabilities. His inability to articulate clear, actionable solutions to real-world problems facing ordinary Romanians underscored a fundamental weakness: a lack of practical vision and depth in policy-making. But most importantly, calling large parts of the Romanian civil service "parasites" that would be instantly fired once he became president was an abrupt departure from his usual lines of attack which until then had been exclusively focused on elites. At a time when Romania has the highest budget deficit in the EU, voters expected to hear a reassuring message focused on stability, not a DOGE-style chaotic purge of the state apparatus.

Fourth, Simion committed several gaffes while campaigning abroad, which is important because foreign policy is one of the main responsibilities of any Romanian presidents. He prematurely left a meeting with supporters in the UK, openly promised Polish PiS voters that he'd spend weeks personally campaigning in Poland's presidential elections despite a financial crisis unravelling in Romania, and suffered through a disastrous panel interview on French channel CNews. In particular, his accusation that French president Emmanuel Macron was a dictator triggered laughter even from conservative panelists who should have been his ideological allies. His faux-pas painfully reminded Romanians of past presidents who had been an embarrassment on the world stage, unable to coherently string a few sentences together in English or French.

As a result of these compounded errors, Simion failed to significantly expand his voter base between the first and second rounds. His approach alienated undecided voters and solidified perceptions of his inadequacy for presidential responsibilities.

In the end, Simion ran the opposite of the campaign that made him a political firebrand in Romania during the heyday of the COVID-19 pandemic: he was devoid of direct engagement, failed to deliver any clear messages that would reassure people, and openly attacked large swaths of the Romanian electorate. Had he stuck to the tried and tested right-wing populist script that made him the leader of the largest party in Romania, he would've easily won 55% of the vote instead of the 46% he got on Sunday.