PresidentialElection2024/: Why Calin Georgescu Was Missing in Polls

Polling companies failed to predict the rise of Calin Georgescu, the surprise winner of the first round of the presidential elections.   Andrei Roman, CEO of AtlasIntel, who predicted that Elena Lasconi (USR) would win second place in the first round of the 2024 presidential election, tried to explain why candidate Calin Georgescu came out of nowhere and was underrepresented in all polls, regardless of methodology. “The fact that the platform used primarily by Georgescu, TikTok, is not among those that AtlasIntel normally uses for data collection probably contributed to this,” says Roman.   The first time Calin Georgescu appeared with a significant increase in the polls was on November 14, when he was credited by AtlasIntel with the highest score to date, 7.4%. The latest AtlasIntel poll, from November 22, showed Elena Lasconi in the second round, with a voting intention of 17.8%, and the four independent candidates (Mircea Geoana, Calin Georgescu, Cristian Diaconescu and Ana Birchall) exceeded 20% of the options combined. Calin Georgescu had 8.1% voting intention, being in fifth place.   Among the polling companies, Verifield, which works with USR, put Elena Lasconi in a tie with George Simion in second place on the Friday before the election, with 19%. The surprise of the poll was the independent Calin Georgescu, who was in fourth place, with 10.6%.   According to partial data from the first round of the 2024 presidential elections, Calin Georgescu collected over 2,100,000 votes, representing almost 23% of the total valid votes cast, being credited with the first chance to proclaim his victory in the first round for the Cotroceni race. “The surprising percentage obtained by Calin Georgescu is accompanied by an order and differences in the case of the other candidates that are close to the estimates of the latest AtlasIntel polls. This fact is illustrated by Elena Lasconi reaching the 2nd round, a fact expected only by the Atlas polls, as well as by the final ranking, with scores below 10% for Nicolae Ciuca, Mircea Geoana and Cristian Diaconescu. Therefore, there is the possibility of a logical explanation of how Calin Georgescu won the first round considering the previous estimates that were published”, explained Andrei Roman for Hotnews.ro.   CEO AtlasIntel has “four main and complementary hypotheses” that can explain the “hurricane” that overturned all the calculations made until the day of the election. “The mobilization of a “hidden” base of voters. I mean voters who probably would not have voted if they were not mobilized by Calin Georgescu, because they are usually not interested and do not participate in the electoral process”, is Roman’s first explanation.   The second hypothesis is the inability of PSD and PNL to mobilize the loyal electorate: “A spatial analysis of the results indicates extremely different results between neighboring communes in the rural area. In many of these, PSD and PNL candidates performed very well, but in even more Calin Georgescu managed to either impose himself or have a more stable performance than that obtained by Ciolacu and Ciuca. The successful mobilization of PSD and PNL in the local elections was repeated, but not on the scale that we would normally have expected”.   “The campaign technique used by Calin Georgescu, through viral posts and videos on social networks, took advantage of the lack of alternatives: Ciolacu suffered from the Nordis scandal, while Geoana and Lasconi were constantly attacked in the traditional media, and Ciuca failed to differentiate himself from the other candidates during the campaign. A low level of enthusiasm for all the other candidates vs. the sudden appearance of a saving solution precisely in the final phase of the campaign may explain a late adherence and a crystallized vote for Georgescu only on election day.”   The third hypothesis stated above may be an explanation for the fact that in the polls published until the last day of the electoral campaign, Calin Georgescu was given in the platoon of those who were not rated with any real chance, although in the last polls an increase had been observed for the independent candidate.   “The participation rate of respondents in public opinion polls. “Given a possible late crystallization of the preference for Georgescu, the participation rate in opinion polls among his voters may have been lower than in the case of voters with firm options defined longer in advance,” says Andrei Roman. “Even with these complementary hypotheses, there are still aspects that remain difficult to explain. For example: the errors of exit polls. At the time of an exit poll, none of the four hypotheses presented above should normally be valid. In the case of exit polls, there were probably sampling errors,” Roman said.   He believes that the error in the AtlasIntel surveys can also be explained by the fact that the institute does not collect data from TikTok, although it uses the random digital recruitment methodology. “On behalf of AtlasIntel, I apologize for the error in our estimates in the first round of the presidential elections in Romania,” Andrei Roman also said.   In his turn, international relations professor Valentin Naumescu said, in an intervention on Digi24, that there is a “combined explanation, with at least two factors” for Calin Georgescu’s victory in the first round.   A significant part of the electorate was expecting an extremist candidate, a radical, sovereignist candidate, an anti-Western candidate. And it happened that, in recent weeks, practically, this electorate, which we knew was initially somewhere around 20%, changed its option from George Simion to Calin Georgescu. So there was an expectation, there was a desire for a retaliatory vote, a protest vote, from people with a lot of frustration, with revolt, with anger towards the system. Another important factor, taken into account by the professor, is the “aggressive” campaign on the social network TikTok.   “It is a network that many of us miss, we do not use it, we are not present there, but it seems that it has a lot of users and some algorithms that were probably paid, financed or there was a certain procedure through which the name of this candidate was repeatedly, massively, in recent weeks, brought to the attention of many users”, said Naumescu.   According to Professor Naumescu, it seems that a large part of his voters do not know exactly who he is, but, receiving many messages, “being bombarded with these ideas, that he is a true Romanian, a strong leader for Romania, that he has a plan, that he has solutions, they came to believe this”.   “So it is a well-thought-out procedure, but, I repeat, Tik-Tok does not fully explain this result, let’s not overestimate this vote, it was not only thanks to Tik-Tok that Calin Georgescu reached the finals”, says Naumescu.   Referring to the messages sent by Calin Georgescu that aimed at an anti-EU and anti-NATO policy and in the context of his possible accession to the Cotroceni Palace, Naumescu said: “Look, we have to be honest. We did not follow these messages during the campaign with the radar, because we did not follow this candidate. He somehow went under the radar, let’s say, of the mainstream press in Romania, even of the opinion polls, of the analysts, I don’t think anyone followed him and treated him seriously and did not give him a chance for the second round. Now we are starting to see what he said in the campaign, what the messages are, so after he came in first place in the presidential election in the first round”.   Nicusor Dan: “Something like this has never been seen before, let’s explain the causes”   Nicusor Dan said he was trying to understand what happened so that Calin Georgescu, who was not listed by the pollsters among the top candidates, could win the presidential election. The mayor of the capital also said that now, in the second round, it is mandatory to elect a president “who has no doubt that Romania should be in the EU and NATO, with a war on the border all the more so”, referring to USR candidate Elena Lasconi.   “It doesn’t happen in sociology that someone has 3% two weeks ago, 10% a week ago and 20% on voting day, I’m talking about the national territory, there were 3 percent from the diaspora. So something like this has never been seen before, and then, if something special happened, let’s explain what the causes are,” said Nicusor Dan, explaining that he discussed with sociology specialists, opinion polls or social networks to understand the result obtained by independent candidate Calin Georgescu.   Asked what Elena Lasconi’s chances are in the second round and whether Romania is ready to have a female president, the mayor replied: “Well, under the given conditions, it is mandatory to elect a president who has no doubt that Romania should be in the EU and NATO, with a war on the border all the more so.”