It was not surprising that George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), topped the first-round vote of Romania's rerun presidential election yesterday.
The 38-year-old had been polling at around 30% for the past couple of weeks and last night, two exit polls reflected those predictions.
But with almost all votes counted, he has performed much better than polls had indicated, winning 41% of votes.
Mr Simion, a self-declared fan of US President Donald Trump, will now face the mayor of Bucharest Nicusor Dan in the decisive second round on 18 May.
Mr Dan, a centrist and independent candidate, won 21% of votes yesterday, leaving Romania's centrist parties with a tough task to galvanise their supporters to vote for him and pose a serious challenge to Mr Simion.
Voters who backed Victor Ponta, the social democrat and former prime minister who placed fourth yesterday, may move their support to Mr Simion given that Mr Ponta had run a populist, MAGA-style campaign. (Wearing MAGA-style baseball hats on the campaign trail to boot).
Mr Simion has risen from far-right activist to potential president in the space of a few years, founding the AUR in 2019 and making it the largest opposition party in the Romanian parliament.
He is banned from entering Moldova and Ukraine by their governments for his ultra-nationalist activism and statements.
The AUR wants to restore Romania to its 1940 borders, to include present-day Moldova and parts of Bulgaria and western Ukraine.
Relations with those neighbouring countries would be thorny under a Simion presidency.
So too would relations with the European Union.
Mr Simion has previously said he will push back against EU laws that don't align with, what he believes to be, Romania's interests.
Not surprisingly, given his standoff with the Ukrainian government over territorial claims, he wants to halt Romania's military aid to Ukraine.
His strong support for Romania's membership of NATO will please western military chiefs given that the alliance currently stations a multinational battlegroup in the country.
Mr Simion's 41% vote share mirrors the same level of support that Calin Georgescu, the winner of the annulled November election, had amassed by March before the country's electoral body barred him from running again.
In this election, Mr Simion has managed to win the support of many Georgescu voters, channelling their frustration after last December's cancelled vote.
Both Mr Simion and Mr Georgescu voted together yesterday in a choreographed display of unity, surely designed to convince more of Mr Georgescu’s supporters to vote for the AUR leader.
Also, Mr Simion's statement just before voting day, and again yesterday when speaking to foreign press that, as president, he would propose the role of prime minister to Mr Georgescu would have won the allegiance of even more Georgescu supporters.
Winning 40% of the vote is already a solid endorsement for Mr Simion.
He has grouped together voters who feel disillusioned with the country's centrist parties, who many blame for rising inequality and years of failing to curb corruption.
Unless Romania's centrist parties mount a unified and dynamic campaign in the next two weeks, the EU's sixth most populous country looks set to have a Trump-loving, ultranationalist president.
