These presidential elections will be interesting - it may turn out that they are not with the lowest turnout and are not about the hard cores.
This was stated to the Bulgarian National Radio by Parvan Simeonov from the "Myara" agency in a comment on the data from a national representative survey by the sociological agency for the Bulgarian National Radio. According to the result, if the presidential elections were in mid-October, 43.4% of voters would vote for Iliyana Yotova and Kiril Valchev, 28.9% for Andrey Gyurov and Georgi Kandev, and 10.9% for Kostadin Kostadinov and Petar Volgin. 10.2%, for Ivelin Mihaylov and Juliana Mateeva - 3.1%, for Radostin Vassilev and Krasimir Manov - 2.9%, for Ivan Hristanov and Stoyanka Cherkezova - 1.9%.
In this type of election, "I do not support anyone" is also a real candidate, and by mid-October, 2.5% would choose this box on the ballot, he pointed out and commented:
"This means that at the moment we have this picture, the most important decisive days remain until the elections and it seems that after that, it will be a runoff".
The second round is a new election, the sociologist pointed out and specified:
"They depend a lot on the psychological reading of the difference in the first round - whether it will be large or small, and whether it will be told as such. And who will support whom in the second round, who will pull what trump card from his sleeve and what will the debate that is emerging decide".
Simeonov emphasized that the study shows a snapshot of electoral attitudes, and is not a forecast.
"The presidential elections will certainly be one of the tests for the current executive branch. One of the things that is expected is whether and to what extent the ruling party PB will declare its support even more clearly, or will support its commitment through political statements to Ms. Yotova. What the data shows is that she continues to have the electoral niche that she had about a month ago, but to a certain extent this niche needs mobilization. The electoral share is the same, but it is not as solid. The various circumstances of a foreign policy nature probably played a role, as well as all the topics that the opposition headquarters raised during the campaign, such as the pardons, for example,", he commented.
There is a visible mobilization in Andrey Gyurov's camp, the foreign policy situation energizes this type of speech, Parvan Simeonov pointed out and added that Gyurov probably needs to unleash his potential in a debate.
"As for the third place for now - Kostadinov and Volgin - there, traditionally, one should wait until the end and not assume anything, because this niche of more radical voters traditionally brings surprises. Kostadinov has little time if he wants to catch up at this point", he believes.
The data are from a sociological "Measure" for the Bulgarian National Radio. The survey is representative of the adult population in Bulgaria and was conducted between October 8 and 19, 2026, with interviews conducted face-to-face with tablets among 1,009 adult Bulgarian citizens. The maximum stochastic error is ±3.1 at 50% shares. 1% of the entire survey sample (not of voters) equals nearly 53,000 people.