Poland’s government enters the danger zone

Can an election in Poland be won when, one year before polling day, a government has more opponents than supporters? Data from the past 15 years suggest that cabinets with a negative net approval rating have rarely gone on to win the next election. Donald Tusk’s government now finds itself in precisely that position.

A heated first parliamentary sitting after the summer break, the continuing controversy surrounding Zondacrypto and another episode in the battle over the Constitutional Tribunal all came within the first few days of September. There is little sign that Poland’s political tempo is about to slow. Quite the opposite: October will mark another anniversary of the last parliamentary election, leaving just 12 months until the next one.

Party polls: Civic Coalition leads, but without a breakthrough

This is a good moment to take a small step back and assess the governing camp’s pre-election position more dispassionately – particularly against comparable moments in the past.

The situation facing Civic Coalition and its governing partners has long been unfavorable. The presidential election marked a turning point in polling trends, after which support for both Poland 2050 and the Polish People’s Party fell below the electoral threshold. PSL politicians say they are not overly concerned, arguing that their party has traditionally been underestimated in opinion polls.

The situation is different for Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz’s party. Support for Poland 2050 has for months hovered around the statistical margin of error. According to unofficial reports, there is a growing belief inside the party that it will have to contest next year’s election in an alliance with another grouping.

The Left, by contrast, remains stable, polling at around 6-6.5%. The party led by Sejm Speaker Włodzimierz Czarzasty did not sit idle during the summer and was the only member of the governing coalition to organize a nationwide summer tour. The New Left used it to promote what it regards as its achievements within the coalition and to set out its plans for the coming year.

Among the coalition’s smaller parties, the Left is therefore the only one showing relative stability. And that may itself be a source of concern for Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Stable, but hardly satisfactory

Civic Coalition’s clear lead in the polls does little to change the underlying arithmetic. For more than two years, average support for KO has fluctuated between 29% and 33%, depending on the poll and the timing of the survey.

That is still far too little to contemplate a comfortable re-election in 2027.

Another, perhaps even more important, source of concern for the governing camp is the public assessment of the government’s performance, measured regularly by CBOS.

Critics outnumber supporters

In the latest survey, published in early September, one-third of respondents said they supported the government – 32%. A somewhat larger group opposed it, at 40%. One in four respondents, 24%, said they were indifferent.

The pattern has looked similar in recent months, with two exceptions. In July this year, 29% of respondents supported the government, while almost half – 48% - opposed it. Those results were probably influenced by the controversy surrounding Warsaw’s Southern Hospital.

The second exception came in July 2025, after the presidential election lost by the October 15 coalition. At that point, government opponents also accounted for 48% of respondents, while supporters made up 32%.

Even if these two “outliers” are excluded, Donald Tusk and his ministers have little reason for satisfaction – particularly when today’s numbers are compared with government approval ratings one year before previous elections.

Tusk was in a stronger position in 2010

The year 2010 brought a shock that shaped Polish politics for years. Bronisław Komorowski of Civic Platform became president, while PO, which had governed with the Polish People’s Party since 2007, remained in power.

Interestingly, the Smolensk tragedy and its consequences did not significantly damage Donald Tusk’s government in the polls. Quite the opposite: at the beginning of 2010, 36% of respondents supported the government. By the end of the year, the figure had risen to 41%.

That was several percentage points higher than the government’s positive rating today.

Another difference between the current situation and that of 15 years ago lies in the share of negative and neutral responses. In 2010, the proportion of government opponents ranged from 24% to 34%. Almost as many respondents were neutral toward the government, with the figure ranging from 26% to 33%.

The 2011 parliamentary election ended with the re-election of the PO-PSL government. Together, the two parties won 47.5% of the vote, enough to secure a majority in the Sejm with 235 seats.

In terms of government popularity, the starting position in 2010 was therefore more favorable for Donald Tusk’s administration than it is today. Back then, close to 40% supported the government, while the shares of opponents and indifferent voters were roughly similar.

Today, support for the government is around 30%, while its opponents outnumber supporters by roughly 10 percentage points. At the same time, far fewer voters are indifferent than they were 15 years ago.

Kopacz, Morawiecki and the lessons of the past

Other examples from the history of Polish opinion polling are not encouraging for the October 15 coalition. Our analysis shows that governments with a negative net approval balance one year before an election subsequently lost that election.

That is not a rule, however, and the nuances matter.

In 2014, the prime minister changed roughly one year before the election. Donald Tusk became president of the European Council and Ewa Kopacz moved into the prime minister’s office on Ujazdowskie Avenue. In the final survey conducted during Tusk’s premiership, 35% supported the government and 37% opposed it.

The difference was therefore small.

From October 2014, CBOS began asking respondents about Ewa Kopacz’s government instead. Around 40% initially described themselves as indifferent. The so-called honeymoon effect therefore has to be taken into account: for several months it improved the government’s net approval balance.

Six months before the election, in April 2015, the net balance reached zero. In May, it turned negative again. The improvement was therefore short-lived.

The picture in 2018 was entirely different. Mateusz Morawiecki’s government enjoyed a positive net rating. In September 2018, 41% of respondents supported the government, 22% opposed it and 32% were indifferent.

The net balance was therefore +19 percentage points.

A year later, the United Right secured re-election and once again formed a majority government on its own, winning 43.6% of the vote.

You can win the vote and still lose power

Four years later, the United Right government was in a very different position. In September 2022, Mateusz Morawiecki’s cabinet had significantly more opponents than supporters.

The share of respondents backing the government stood at 28%. Opposition to the PiS-led cabinet was much higher, at 46%. Nearly one in four respondents – 23% - was indifferent.

The net balance was therefore far worse than four years earlier, at -18 percentage points.

It is worth noting that in 2023 PiS ultimately won a larger share of the vote - 35.38% - han the proportion of respondents who had supported the government one year before the election.

That is another caveat to the broader thesis. Although PiS was unable to secure another term in office, its final electoral support exceeded the share of government supporters recorded a year before polling day.

Can voter mobilization make the difference?

The conclusion? If government approval one year before an election is used as the main reference point, there is little good news for the current coalition.

A negative net approval balance is difficult to reverse. The governments of Ewa Kopacz and Mateusz Morawiecki’s second administration both had more opponents than supporters and, one year later, lost power to their political rivals.

That does not mean the October 15 coalition should raise the white flag. In 2023, although PiS failed to stay in power, it still won more than 35% of the vote.

The next election will also be shaped by other factors: whether parties consolidate into joint electoral committees, how candidate lists are constructed and – perhaps most importantly - how effectively each camp mobilizes its own voters.

Key Takeaways

1. Polling for the parties that make up the governing coalition has provided little reason for optimism for more than two years. Civic Coalition retains a lead, but its support has long remained between 29% and 33%, which is not enough to make a comfortable re-election appear likely. Among its coalition partners, only the Left can point to stable support clearly above the electoral threshold.
2. CBOS assessments of the government’s performance are also unfavorable for the coalition. In September 2026, 32% of respondents said they supported the government, while 40% opposed it. This pattern has persisted for months, apart from periods after the presidential election and the controversy surrounding Warsaw’s Southern Hospital, when opposition to the government temporarily increased.
3. Comparing today’s figures with similar points before previous elections shows that Tusk’s government is in a weaker position than it was in 2010, when supporters clearly outnumbered opponents, and is closer to the patterns seen in 2014 and 2022. The Kopacz and Morawiecki governments also had negative net approval ratings at those points and lost power a year later. The relationship is not absolute, however: despite a negative net balance, PiS still won more than 35% of the vote in 2023, more than the share of respondents who had supported the government a year earlier. The final outcome will therefore also depend on factors such as voter mobilization.