In the first round of presidential elections, American Polonia mostly voted for Andrzej Duda. In general, 13 237 people voted for him, while Rafał Trzaskowski supported 9046 voters.
Andrzej Duda during his election evening
/ Radek Pietruszka /PAP
In America, the election took place on Saturday. The game in five constituencies took place mainly between the incumbent Polish president and the president of Warsaw. Duda won in the largest clusters of the Polish diaspora in the districts subject to the consulates general in New York and Chicago. Trzaskowski turned out to be the winner in Los Angeles, Washington and Houston.
In the first round, the largest number of Polish community voters, 10,634, was noted by the New York consulate. Duda received 5076 (47 percent) votes there, ahead of Trzaskowski 4017 (37.8 percent).
As the Consul General Adrian Kubicki told PAP, the turnout (expressed by the ratio of returnable envelopes received to sent to the electorate) amounted to 84 percent.
Duda was also a winner in the Chicago constituency. 6731 people voted for him, and 2101 for his biggest competitor. In total, 10 002 valid votes were cast with 86.4 percent voter turnout, which gave satisfaction to Consul General Piotr Janicki.
“We had the deadline to send electoral packages scheduled for Monday, and we did it a few days earlier and to save time we put them in the sorting room. With us even in difficult conditions (associated with coronavirus), the American post office, maybe not 100%, but it managed” – Janicki assessed.
Trzaskowski won the first round of elections in the remaining consular districts covering the smaller Polonia.
In Los Angeles, where a total of 2,806 people voted with a turnout of 78 percent. the president of Warsaw was supported by 1509 voters, while Duda 653. In Washington he won in a ratio of 1080 to 549. The turnout therein was 71.4 percent, with a total of 1975 voters.
The highest turnout, 90.4 percent, was recorded by the youngest Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Houston, opened in December 2017. A total of 709 people voted there, including 339 for Trzaskowski and 228 for Duda.
Among other presidential candidates, the Polonia electorate supported Szymon Hołownia and Krzysztof Bosak to a much lesser extent. The others hardly mattered.
Not all voters in the US were satisfied with voting by mail. He belonged to them, among others Józef Piotrowski from Long Island. “I am so disgusted, this is amazing. I didn’t get the voting card until Saturday at 5.20 pm. I was deprived of the chance to participate in the election,” he told PAP.
He explained that he was registering to vote at the same time as a colleague who had received the package the week before. He complained about the lack of information, e.g. how many stamps need to be stuck and at what price, because his friends, who were certain to drop packages at the post office, had to pay extra, and in his opinion the envelopes of others could not be delivered due to insufficient payment.
President of the Smolensk-Katyn Committee and GP Clubs in Philadelphia Tadeusz Antoniak also admitted that some potential voters complained because they either did not get ballots or they came too late.
“In recent polls, I see that in the second round President Duda will have a hard fight to win the reelection. In my opinion, however, he will win, because potentially about 10-15% of Hołownia voters, about 1.5% Kosiniak-Kamysz and 5-6 percent of Bosak Confederation will support Duda and ensure him victory over Trzaskowski, “Antoniak said.
In his opinion, in the second round of elections, the emotions of the candidates and how they will show them in their statements will play a significant role.
“For example, President Duda will identify with the power camp, 500+ social policy and raising living standards. And Trzaskowski will identify with what he demonstrated as the president of Warsaw, including the position on the promotion of LGBT ideology,” Antoniak predicted.
An investment banker, stock market player, author of the best-selling “Art of Speculation” Zenon Komar, currently living in Summit, New Jersey, noticed that exit polls confirmed the results of earlier polls, giving about 10 percent. advantage of Duda.
“I am an optimist, and in my opinion, if the opposition unites, Trzaskowski should win a minimum advantage of about 2 percent and become a new president. It would mean the next step towards normality and restoring balance in the authorities” – said Komar.
From New York Andrzej Dobrowolski (PAP)
