Bulgaria’s 2026 presidential elections: Yotova 41.4%, Gyurov 21.9% – poll
The presidential election ticket of incumbent head of state Iliana Yotova and vice-presidential candidate Kiril Vulchev has 41.4 per cent support among those who intend to vote, with former caretaker prime minister Andrei Gyurov and his running mate Georgi Kandev in second place with 21.9 per cent, according to the results of a Market Links poll, released on September 30.
Bulgaria is holding regular presidential elections on October 25 2026. If no candidate wins more than 50 per cent of the vote on that day, a second round will be held on November 1 between the two tickets with the largest shares of votes.
The Yotova – Gyurov ticket is supported by Prime Minister Roumen Radev’s Progressive Bulgaria, the Bulgarian Socialist Party and left-wing pro-Russian party ABV.
The Gyurov – Kandev ticket is supported by We Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria, as well as some extra-parliamentary reformist parties.
There are 27 presidential candidates in the 2026 elections. None of the remaining 25 has support in double figures.
Vuzrazhdane’s Kostadin Kostadinov and Petar Volgin are in a distant third place with 6.4 per cent.
Market Links’s Dobromir Zhivkov told bTV that the agency expected about 40 per cent voter turnout, in contrast with the 51 per cent in Bulgaria’s April 2026 early parliamentary elections.
At this stage, 20.4 per cent of those polled had not yet decided for whom they would vote.
Zhivkov said that the backing of Radev’s Progressive Bulgaria was obviously directing their voters towards supporting the Yotova – Vulchev ticket.
The poll found that were Bulgaria to hold parliamentary elections now, Progressive Bulgaria would get 34.6 per cent, Boiko Borissov’s GERB-UDF 10.3 per cent, We Continue the Change nine per cent, Democratic Bulgaria 7.2 per cent, pro-Russian party Vuzrazhdane 5.4 per cent and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms – the party led by Magnitsky Act-sanctioned Delyan Peevski – 4.5 per cent.
Radev remains the only politician with a positive approval rating, but approval of him is decreasing while disapproval is increasing. His approval rating is 44 per cent and disapproval rating 39 per cent.
“The trend rather predicts that in the next few months we will have an equalisation, and perhaps even a reversal and a descent into the negative part of the scale,” Zhivkov said.
Trust in the Radev government is falling, the poll found – from 50 per cent in May to 39 per cent now. At the same time, distrust is increasing – from 24 per cent then to 40 per cent now.
The poll was done jointly with bTV and was carried out among 1006 individuals over the age of 18 in Bulgaria from September 26 to 29, through direct personal interviews and online polling.
(Photos: president.bg and government.bg)
