Why Polish youth supported radicals and opponents of Ukraine

Poland’s 2025 presidential election revealed several unexpected shifts in public opinion. One of them was the large share of young voters who supported far-right candidates – in particular, election winner Karol Nawrocki and the leader of Confederation, Sławomir Mentzen, whose ideology many left-leaning Poles consider close to Nazism.

These politicians are also known for initiatives aimed at restricting the rights of Ukrainians in Poland.

Paradoxically, just two years ago young people leaned toward supporting the main opponents of these politicians – the Civic Coalition led by Donald Tusk.

The Stefan Batory Foundation, which conducted a study of Polish youth preferences, sought to understand why these preferences changed so sharply. Paweł Marczewski, sociologist and head of research at ideaForum, explained the findings in an interview with New Eastern Europe, a partner of European Pravda in the MOST consortium. 

Read more in the article - For the far-right, but not for their values: how and why Polish youth vote.

Young people recognise that, because they are outnumbered, they must mobilise if they want their voices heard.

We saw this clearly in the last presidential election. Youth turnout in both rounds exceeded 70 per cent – even higher than in the 2023 parliamentary elections.

Thus, we asked: are young people satisfied with politics? Or have they become disillusioned? And if they are disappointed, what effect does it have on them? Are they demobilised or are they looking for new political alternatives?

It turned out that young people largely moved away from those they had supported in the previous elections.

Today, many young people admit that they feel betrayed. They believe the government has abandoned the issues that were most important to them.

Their earlier support for the Civic Coalition was an exception. We also need to remember that young people consume politics differently.

They get much of their information from social media – especially fast-moving platforms like TikTok. This is why politicians such as Sławomir Mentzen from the far-right Confederation have become so popular among them.

He offers something "new" – or at least he looks like he does. 

In our in-depth interviews, they told us that they see him as "uncompromised" – he has not held high office, has not been tainted by political scandals, and is not controlled by a major party. This sense of novelty matters enormously to young voters.

Their motivation is often very straightforward: they neither want Tusk nor Jarosław Kaczyński (the leader of the right-wing nationalist Law and Justice party – Ed.). They want someone new.

Many young people are willing to back a candidate even if they disagree with parts of his or her platform. What unites them is their rejection of the old political order, and their search for something, or someone, new.

If asked directly about the war, young people say it worries them.

However, their fear is much weaker than that of older generations – and this is natural. For them, war is an abstract concept, something they know only from family stories, if at all.

If you talk to them for longer, they will acknowledge that the war is close to Poland, and that we are on NATO and the EU’s border. But at the same time, they recognise the security guarantees that come with our membership in these organisations.

Overall, migration is seen as a source of anxiety.

But when it comes to non-Ukrainian migrants, young people’s attitudes do not differ significantly from those of the wider population.